The poetical and dramatic works of S.T. Coleridge Volume 1

9 (?

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i

THE POETICAL WORKS OF
. S. T. COLERIDGE

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL I

THE POETICAL
AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF

S. T. COLERIDGE

VOL I

LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING

1844

CHISWICK :

PRINTED BY C. VV HITTINGHAM. /

PREFACE. 1

COMPOSITIONS resembling- those of the present
volume are not unfrequently condemned for their
querulous egotism. But egotism is to be con
demned then only when it offends against time
and place, as in a history or an epic poem. To
censure it in a monody or sonnet is almost as ab-
surd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why
then write Sonnets or Monodies ? Because they
give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else
could. ^ After the more violent emotions of sor
row, the mind demands amusement, and can find
it in employment alone : but full of its late suffer
ings, it can endure no employment not in some
measure connected with them. Forcibly to turn
away our attention to general subjects is a painful
and most often an unavailing effort.

f " But ! how grateful to a wounded heart
I The tale of misery to impart

From others eyes bid artless sorrows flow,
, And raise esteem upon the base of woe !"

SHAW.

1 To the first and second editions.

VI PREFACE.

The communicativeness of our nature leads us to
describe our own sorrows ; in the endeavour to
describe them, intellectual activity is exerted ;
and from intellectual activity there results a plea
sure, which is gradually associated, and mingles
as a corrective, with the painful subject of the
I description. " True !" (it may be answered) " but
I how is the Public interested in your sorrows or
your description?" We are for ever attributing
personal unities to imaginary aggregates. What /
is the Public, but a term for a number of scattered
individuals ? Of whom as many will be interested
in these sorrows, as have experienced the same or
similar.

" Holy be the lay
Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way."

If I could judge of others by myself, I should notiv
hesitate to affirm, that the most interesting pas
sages in all writings are those in which the author
developes his own feelings ? The sweet voice of
Cona 1 never sounds so sweetly, as when it speaks
of itself; and I should almost suspect that man of

an unkindly heart, who could read the opening

i

of the third book of the Paradise Lost without pe
culiar emotion. By a law of our nature, he, who

1 Ossian.

PREFACE. Vil

labours under a strong feeling, is impelled to seek
for sympathy ; but a poet s feelings are all strong.
Quicquid amet valde amat. Akenside therefore
speaks with philosophical accuracy when he
classes Love and Poetry, as producing the same
effects :

" Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue
Would teach to others bosoms, what so charms
Their own." PLEASURES or IMAGINATION.

There is one species of egotism which is truly
disgusting ; not that which leads us to communi
cate our feelings to others, but that which would
reduce the feelings of others to an identity with
our own. The atheist, who exclaims, " pshaw !"
when he glances his eye on the praises of Deity,
is an egotist : an old man, when he speaks con
temptuously of Love-verses, is an egotist : and
the sleek favorites of fortune are egotists, when
they condemn all " melancholy, discontented"
verses. Surely, it would be candid not merely to
ask whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to
consider whether or no there may not be others,
to whom it is well calculated to give an innocent
pleasure.

I shall only add, that each of my readers will,
I hope, remember, that these poems on various
subjects, which he reads at one time and under

V1U PREFACE.

the influence of one set of feelings, were written
j at different times and prompted by very different
feelings ; and therefore that the supposed in*
feriority of one poem to another may sometimes
be owing to the temper of mind, in which he
happens to peruse it.

My poems have been rightly charged with a
profusion of double-epithets, and a genera] ^turgid-
ness. I have pruned the double-epithets with no
sparing hand; and used my best efforts to tame
the swell and glitter both of thought and diction. 1
This latter fault however had insinuated itself into
my Religious Musings with such intricacy of
union, that sometimes I have omitted to disen-

I

1 Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to
express some degree of surprise, that after having run the
critical gauntlet for a certain class of faults, which I had,
viz. a too ornate, and elaborately poetic diction, and nothing 1
having come beibre the judgment-seat of the Reviewers
during the long interval, I should for at least seventeen
years, quarter after quarter, have been placed by them in
the foremost rank of the proscribed, and made to abide the
brunt of abuse and ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz.
bald and prosaic language, and an affected simplicity both
of matter and manner faults which assuredly did not enter
into the character of my compositions.

Literary Life, i. 51. Published 1817.

PREFACE. IX

tangle the weed from the fear of snapping- the
flower. A third and heavier accusation has been
brought against me, that of obscurity. ; but not, I
think, with equal justice. An author is obscure,
when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and
his language incorrect, or inappropriate, or in
volved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like
the Bard of Gray, or one that impersonates high
and abstract truths, like Collins s Ode on the po
etical character, claims not to be popular but
should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency V
is in the reader. But this is a charge which
every poet, \vhose imagination is warm and rapid,
must expect from his contemporaries. Milton did v
not escape it ; and it was adduced with virulence ^
against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more
of it : not that their poems are better understood
at present, than they were at their first publica
tion ; but their fame is established ; and a critic
would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention,
who should profess not to understand them. But
a living writer is yet sub judice ; and if we can
not follow his conceptions or enter into his feel-

ings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider
him as lost beneath, than as soaring above us. If
any man expect from my poems the same easiness
of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for

X PREFACE.

him I have not written. Intelligibilia, non in-
tellectum a dfero.

I expect neither profit nor general fame by my
writings ; and I consider myself as having been
amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to
me its own "exceeding great reward:" it has
soothed my afflictions ; it has multiplied and re-
fined my enjoyments ; it has endeared solitude ;
and it has given me the habit of wishing to dis
cover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets
and surrounds me.

S. T. C.

CONTENTS.
VOLUME I.

JUVENILE POEMS.

Genevieve ................................................ 3

Sonnet. To the Autumnal Moon .................. 3

Anthem for the Children of Christ s Hospital ...... 4

Time, real and imaginary .............................. 5

Monody on the Death of Chatterton .................. 6

Songs of the Pixies ...................... , ............... 13

The Raven ................................................ 18

Music ...................................................... 20

Devonshire Roads ....................... . ............... 21

Inside the Coach .......................................... 22

Mathematical Problem ................................. 23

The Nose ................................................... 27

Monody on a Tea-kettle ................................. 29

Absence, a Farewell Ode ..... . ........................ 30

.Sonnet. On Leaving School ........................ 31

To the Muse ............................................. 32

With Fieldin s Amelia .............................. 33

Sonnet. On hearing that his Sister s Death was

inevitable ............................................. 33

On Seeing a Youth affectionately welcomed by a

Sister ................................................ 34

The same ...... , ............................................ 35

Pain ......................................................... 35

Life ......................................................... 36

Lines on an Autumnal Evening .................. .. 36

The Rose ................................................ 40

The Kiss .................................................. 41

To a Young Ass ....................................... ... 43

Happiness ................................................ 44

Domestic Peace ............................... , ......... 48

The Sigh .................................................. 48

XH CONTENTS.

JUVENILE POEMS. Page

Epitaph on an Infant 49

On Imitation 50

Honor 50

Progress of Vice 53

Lines written at the King s Arms, Ross 54

Destruction of the Bastile 55

Lines to a beautiful Spring in a Village 57

On a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever induced

by calumnious reports 58

To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French

Revolution 60

Sonnet I. " My Heart has thanked thee, Bowles" 62
II. " As late I lay in Slumber s Shadowy

Vale" 63

III. " Though roused by that dark vizir

Riot rude 64

IV. " When British Freedom from a

happier land" 64

V. " It was some Spirit, Sheridan!" 65

VI. " O what a loud and fearful shriek" 66
VII. " As when faroff" 66

- VIII. "Thou gentle look" 67

IX. " Pale Roamer through the Night !" 68

X. " Sweet Mercy !" 68

- XI. " Thou Bleedest, my Poor Heart" ... 69

XII. To the Author of the Robbers 70

Lines, composed while climbing Brockley Coomb 70

Lines in the Manner of Spenser 71

Imitated from Ossian 73

The Complaint of Ninathoma 74

Imitated from the Welsh 75

To an Infant 75

Lines in Answer to a Letter from Bristol 76

To a Friend in Answer to a melancholy Letter... 80

Religious Musings 82

The Destiny of Nations, a Vision 98

CONTENTS. Xlll

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Ode to the Departing Year ........................... 121

France, an Ode ........................ . ............. .... 128

Fears in Solitude ....................................... 132

Fire, Famine, and Slaughter ........................ 141

Love ............................. . ........................ 145

The Ballad of the Dark Ladie. A Fragment.... 150

Lewti, or the Circassian Love Chaunt ............ 152

The Picture, or the Lover s Resolution ......... 155

The Night Scene, a Dramatic Fragment ......... 162

To an Unfortunate Woman .......................... 166

To an Unfortunate Woman at the Theatre ______ 167

Lines composed in a Concert Room ............... 168

The Keepsake .......................................... 170

To a Lady, with Falconer s Shipwreck ............ 172

To a Young Lady on her recovery from a Fever 173

Something Childish, but very Natural ............ 174

Home-sick: written in Germany .................. 175

Answer to a Child s Question ... v ................ 176

A Child s Evening Prayer ........................... 176

The Visionary Hope .................................... 177

The Happy Husband ................................. 178

Recollections of Love ................................. 179

On revisiting the Sea-shore ........................ 181

Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni 183
Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode in the

Hartz Forest ....................................... 187

On observing a Blossom on the First of Feb

ruary ................................................ 189

The JEolian Harp ...................................... 190

Reflections on having left a place of Retirement 193

To the Rev. George Coleridge ..................... 196

Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath ............ 199

A Tombless Epitaph ................................. 200

This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison .................. 201

To a Friend, who had declared his intention of

writing no more Poetry ........................ 205

XIV CONTENTS.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. Page
To WilUam Wordsworth, composed on the night
after his recitation of a Poem on the growth

of an individual mind 206

The Nightingale 211

Frost at Midnight 216

The Three Graves 219

Dejection, an Ode 235

Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire 241

Ode to Tranquillity 244

To a Young Friend, on his proposing to domes
ticate with the Author 246

Lines to W. L. while he sang a song to Purcell s

Music 249

Addressed to a Younsr Man of Fortune 249

ij

Sonnet. To the River Otter 250

Composed on a journey homeward after

hearing of the birth of a Son 251

- To a F/iend 252

The Virgin s Cradle Hymn 252

Epitaph on an Infant 253

Melancholy, a Fragment 253

Tell s Birth Place 254

A Christmas Carol 256

Human Life 258

Moles 259

, The Visit of the Gods 259

Elegy, imitated from Akenside 261

Separation 262

On taking leave of 263

The Pangmore sharp than all 263

KublaKhan 266

The Pains of Sleep 270

Limbo 272

Ne plus ultra 273

Apologetic Preface to Fire, Famine, and Slaughter 274

JUVENILE POEMS

VOL. I. B

GENE VIE VE.

MAID of my Love, sweet Genevieve !

In Beauty s light you glide along :

Your eye is like the star of eve,

And sweet your Voice, as Seraph s song-.

Yet not your heavenly Beauty gives

This heart with passion soft to glow :

Within your soul a Voice there lives !

It bids you hear the tale of Woe.

When sinking low the Sufferer wan

Beholds no hand outstretcht to save,

Fair, as the bosom of the Swan

That rises graceful o er the wave,

I ve seen your breast with pity heave,

And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve !

SONNET.

TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON.

.

MILD Splendour of the various-vested Night !
Mother of wildly^wojrkmg visions ! hail !
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil ;

4 JUVENILE POEMS

And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the" gathered blackness lost on higii ;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning 1 o er the awakened sky.
Ah such is Hope ! as changeful and as fair !
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight ;
Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair :
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

ANTHEM

FOR THE CHILDREN OF CHRIST S HOSPITAL.

t SERAPHS ! around th Eternal s seat who throng
-.

With tuneful extacies of praise :
O ! teach our feeble tongues like yours the song

Of fervent gratitude to raise
Like you, inspir d with holy flame
To dwell on that Almighty name
Who bade the child of woe no longer sigh,
And Joy in tears o erspread the Widow s eye.

Th all-gracious Parent hears the wretch s
prayer ;

The meek tear strongly pleads on high ;
Wan Resignation struggling with despair

The Lord beholds with pitying eye ;
Sees cheerless want unpitied pine,
Disease on earth its head recline,

JUVENILE POEMS. 5

And bids compassion seek the realms of woe
To heal the wounded, and to raise the low.

She comes ! she comes ! the meek ey d power

I see

With liberal hand that loves to bless ;
The clouds of sorrow at her presence ifee ;

Rejoice ! rejoice ! ye children of distress !
The beams that play around her head
Thro want s dark vale their radiance spread :
The young 1 uncultur d mind imbibes the ray,
And vice reluctant quits th expected prey.

Cease, thou lorn mother ! cease thy wailings

drear ;

Ye babes ! the unconscious sob forego ;
Or let full gratitude now prompt the tear

Which erst did sorrow force to flow.
Unkindly cold and tempest shrill
In life s morn oft the traveller chill,
But soon his path the sun of Love shall warm ;
And each glad scene look brighter for the storm !

1789.

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY.

AN ALLEGORY.

ON the wide level of a mountain s head,
(I knew not where, but twas some faery place)
Their pinions,, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,

6 JUVENILE POEMS.

f

A sister and a brother !
That far outstripp d the other ;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind :

For he, alas ! is blind !

O er rough and smooth with even step he passed,
And knows not whether he be first or last.

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON.

O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing- how gladly we all sink to sleep,
Babes, Children, Youths, and Men,
Night following night for threescore years and ten !
But doubly strange, where life is but a breath
To sigh and pant with, up Want s rugged steep.

Away, Grim Phantom ! Scorpion King, away !
Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display
For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of State !
Lo ! by the grave I stand of one, for whom
A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom
(That all bestowing, this withholding all,)
Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome
Sound like a seeking Mother s anxious call,
Return, poor Child ! Home, weary Truant, home !

Thee, Chatterton ! these unblest stones protect

JUVENILE POEMS. 7

From want, and the bleak freezing s of neglect.
Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven
Here hast thou found repose ! beneath this sod !
Thou ! O vain word ! thou dwell st not with the clod !
Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven
Thou at the throne of Mercy and thy God
The triumph of redeeming Love dost hymn
(Believe it, my Soul !) to harps of Seraphim.

Yet oft, perforce, ( tis suffering Nature s call)
I weep, that heaven-born Genius so should fall ;
And oft, in Fancy s saddest hour, my soul
Averted shudders at the poisoned bowl.
Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view

Thy corse of livid hue ;

Now indignation checks the feeble sigh, [eye !
Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine

Is this the land of song-ennobled line ?

Is this the land, where Genius ne er in vain

Poured forth his lofty strain ?
Ah me ! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine,
Beneath chill Disappointment s shade,
His weary limbs in lonely anguish laid ;

And o er her darling dead

Pity hopeless hung her head,
While u mid the pelting of that merciless storm,"
Sunk to the cold earth Otway s famished form !

Sublime of thought, and confident of fame ;

8 JUVENILE POEMS.

From vales where Avon winds the Minstrel 1 came.

Light-hearted youth ! aye, as he hastes along-,

He meditates the future song 1 ,
How dauntless JElla fray d the Dacyan foe ;

And while the numbers flowing strong 1

V

In eddies whirl, in surges throng,
Exulting in the spirits genial throe
In tides of power his life-blood seems to flow.

And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame,
His eyes have glorious meanings, that declare
More than the light of outward day shines there,
A holier triumph and a sterner aim !
Wings grow within him ; and he soars above
Or Bard s or Minstrel s lay of war or love.
-Friend to the friendless, to the Sufferer health,
-He hears the widow s prayer, the good man s

praise;

To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth,
And young and old shall now see happy days.
On many a waste he bids trim Gardens rise,
Gives the blue sky to many a prisoner s eyes ;
And now in wrath he grasps the patriot steel,
And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel.

~- eet Flower of Hope ! free Nature s genial child !
That didst so fair disclose thy early bloom,
Filling the wide air with a rich perfume !
For thee in vain all heavenly aspects smil d ;

1 Avon, a river near Bristol ; the birth-place of Chatterton.

POEMS.

From the hard world brief respite could they
The frost nipp d sharp without, the canker pr-

within !
Ah ! where are fled the charms of vernal Gra

And Joy s wild gleams that lighten d o er thy face *
Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye !
Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view,
On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew,
And oh I the anguish of that shuddering sigh !

_ r- Such were the struggles of the gloomy hoar,

When Care, of withered brow.
Prepared the poison s death-cold power :
Already to thy lips was raised the bowl,
When near thee stood Affection meek
(Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek)
Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll
On scenes that well might melt thy soul ;
Thy native cot she flashed upon thy view,
Thy native cot, where still, at close of day.
Peace smiling sate, and listened to thy la-
Thy Sister s shrieks she bade thee hear,
And mark thy mother s thrilling tear ;

See, see her breast s convulsive throe,
Her silent agony of woe !
Ah I dash the poisoned chalice from thy hand !

And thou had st dashed it, at her soft command,
But that Despair and Indignation rose,
- And told again the storv of thv woes ;

10 JUVENILE POEMS.

Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart ;
The dread dependence on the low-born mind ;
Told every pang, with which thy soul must smart,
Neglect, and grinning Scorn, and Want combined !
Recoiling quick, thou bad st the friend of pain
Roll the black tide of Death through every freez
ing vein !

O Spirit blest !

Whether the Eternal s throne around,
Amidst the blaze of Seraphim,
Thou pourest forth the grateful hymn ;
Or soaring thro the blest domain
Enrapturest Angels with thy strain,
Grant me, like thee, the lyre to sound,
Like thee with fire divine to glow ;
But ah ! when rage the waves of woe,
Grant me with firmer breast to meet their hate,
And soar beyond the storm with upright eye elate !

Ye woods ! that wave o er Avon s rocky steep,
To Fancy s ear sweet is your murmuring deep !
For here she loves the cypress wreath to weave
Watching, with wistful eye, the saddening tints of

eve.

Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove,
In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove,
Like star-beam on the slow sequestered tide
Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching

wide.

JUVENILE POEMS. 11

And here, in Inspiration s eager hour,
-When most the big soul feels the mastering- power, -
These wilds, these caverns roaming o er,
Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar,
With wild unequal steps he passed along,
Oft pouring on the winds a broken song :
Anon, upon some rough rock s fearful brow
Would pause abrupt and gaze upon the waves
below.

Poor Chatterton ! he sorrows for thy fate
Who would have praised and loved thee, ere too late.
Poor Chatterton ! farewell ! of darkest hues
This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb ;
But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,
Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom :
For oh ! big gall-drops, shook from Folly s wing,
Have blackened the fair promise of my; spring ;
And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart
-The last pale Hope that shivered at my heart !

Hence, gloomy thoughts ! no more my soul shall

dwell

On joys that were ! No more endure to weigh
The shame and anguish of the evil day,
(Wisely forgetful ! O er the ocean swell
Sublime of Hope I seek the cottaged dell
Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray;
And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay,
The wizard passions weave a holy spell !

12 JUVENILE POEMS.

O Chatterton ! that thou wert yet alive !
Sure thou weuld st spread the canvass to the gale,
And love with us the tinkling 1 team to drive
O er peaceful Freedom s undivided dale ;
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Would hang, enraptured, on thy stately song,
And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy
AH deftly masked, as hoar Antiquity.
Alas, vain Phantasies ! the fleeting brood
Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood !
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,
Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream ;
/And on some hill, whose forest- frowning side"N
Waves o er the murmurs of his calmer tide, J
Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,
Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy !
And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.

JUVENILE POEMS. 1

3

SONGS OF THE PIXIES.

THE PIXIES, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race
of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man.
At a small distance from a village in that county, half way
up a wood-covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies
Parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling ; and on
its sides are innumerable cyphers, among which the author
discovered his own and those of his brothers, cut by the
hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the
river Otter.

To this place the Author, during the Summer months of
the year 1 793, conducted a party of young ladies ; one of
whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion
colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On
which occasion the following Irregular Ode was written.

I.

WHOM the untaught Shepherds -call

Pixies in their madrigal,
Fancy s children, here we dwell :

Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell.
Here the wren of softest note

Builds its nest and warbles well ;
Here the blackbird strains his throat ;

Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell.

ii.

< When fades the moon to shadowy-pale,
I And scuds the cloud before the gale,
Ere the Morn, all o- e m-bedie;ht,

O O 7

14 JUVENILE POEMS.

Hath streak d the East with rosy light,
We sip the furze-flower s fragrant dews
Clad in robes of rainbow hues :
Or sport amid the shooting gleams
To the tune of distant- tinkling teams,
While lusty Labour scouting sorrow
Bids the Dame a glad good-morrow,
Who jogs the accustomed road along,
And paces cheery to her cheering song.

in.

But not our filmy pinion
We scorch amid the blaze of day,
When Noontide s fiery-tressed minion

Flashes the fervid ray.
Aye from the sultry heat
We to the cave retreat
O ercanopied by huge roots intertwined
With wildest texture, blackened o er with age :
Round them their mantle green the ivies bind,
Beneath whose foliage pale
Fanned by the unfrequent gale
We shield us from the Tyrant s mid-day rage.

IV.

Thither, while the murmuring throng
Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song,
By Indolence and Fancy brought,
A youthful Bard, " unknown to Fame,"
Wooes the Queen of Solemn Thought,

JUVENILE POEMS. 15

And heaves the gentle misery of a sigh

Gazing with tearful eye,
As round our sandy grot appear
Many a rudely sculptured name
To pensive Memory dear !
Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue

We glance before his view :
O er his hush d soul our soothing witcheries shed
And twine the future garland round his head.

v.

When Evening s dusky car

Crowned with her dewy star
Steals o er the fading sky in shadowy flight ; ,

On leaves of aspen trees

We tremble to the breeze
Veiled from the grosser ken of mortal sight.

Or, haply, at the visionary hour,
Along our wildly-bowered sequestered walk,
We listen to the enamoured rustic s talk ;
Heave with the heavings of the maiden s breast,
Where young-eyed Loves have hid their turtle nest ;

Or guide of soul-subduing power
The glance, that from the half-confessing eye
Darts the fond question or the soft reply.

VI.

Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale
We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank ;
Or, silent-sandal d, pay our defter court,

16 JUVENILE POEMS.

Circling- the Spirit of the Western Gale,
Where*wearied with his flower-caressing- sport,
Supine he slumbers on a violet bank ;
Then with quaint music hymn the parting 1 gleam
By lonely Otter s sleep-persuading- stream ;
Or where his wave with loud unquiet song-
Dashed o er the rocky channel froths along- ;
Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest,
The tall tree s shadow sleeps upon his breast.

VII.

Hence thou lingerer, Light !
Eve saddens into Night.
Mother of wildly-working dreams ! we view

t\,

The sombre hours, that round thee stand
With down-cast eyes (a duteous band) !
Their dark robes dripping with the heavy dew.
Sorceress of the ebon throne !
Thy power the Pixies own,
When round thy raven brow r
Heaven s lucent roses glow,
And clouds in watery colours drest
Float in light drapery o er thy sable vest :
What time the pale moon sheds a softer day
Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam :
For mid the quivering light tis ours to play,.
Aye dancing to the cadence of the stream. -

VIII.

Welcome, Ladies ! to the cell
Where the blameless Pixies dwell :

JUVENILE POEMS. 17

But them, sweet Nymph ! proclaimed our Faery

Queen,

With what obeisance meet
Thy presence shall we greet ?
For lo ! attendant on thy steps are seen
Graceful Ease in artless stole,
And white-robed Purity of soul,

With Honour s softer mien ;
Mirth of the loosely-flowing hair,
And meek-eyed Pity eloquently fair,

Whose tearful cheeks are lovely to the view,
As snow-drop wet with dew.

IX.

Unboastful Maid ! though now the Lily pale

Transparent grace thy beauties meek ;
Yet ere again along the impurpling vale,
The purpling vale and elfin-haunted grove,
Young Zephyr his fresh flowers profusely throws.

We ll tinge with livelier hues thy cheek ;
And, haply, from the nectar-breathing Rose
Extract a Blush for Love !

VOL. I.

18 JUVENILE POEMS.

THE RAVEN.

A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS
LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

UNDERNEATH an old oak tree

There was of swine a huge company

That grunted as they crunched the mast :

For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high :

One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.

Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly :

He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy !

Blacker was he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight

By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go ?
He went high and low,

Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.
Many Autumns, many Springs
Travelled he with wandering wings :
Many Summers, many Winters
1 can t tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She,
And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had. and were happy enow

JUVENILE rOEMS. 19

But soon came a woodman in leathern guise,
His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.
He d an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,
But with many a hem ! and a sturdy stroke,
At length he brought down the poor Raven sown oak.
His young ones were killed ; for they could not

depart,

And their mother did die of a broken heart.
The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever ;
And they floated it down on the course of the river.
They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,
And with this tree and others they made a good ship.
The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land
Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand .
It bulged on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast :
Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to

the blast.

He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls
See ! See ! o er the topmast the mad water rolls !

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,
And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,
And he thank d him again and again for this treat :

They had taken his all, and Revenge it was sweet !

20 JUVENILE POEMS.

MUSIC.

HENCE, soul-dissolving Harmony

That lead st th oblivious soul astray
Though thou sphere descended be

Hence away !
Thou mightier Goddess, thou demand st my lay,

Born when earth was seiz d with cholic ;
Or as more sapient sages say,
What time the Legion diabolic

Compelled their beings to enshrine
In bodies vile of herded swine,
Precipitate adown the steep
With hideous rout were plunging in the deep ,
And hog and devil mingling grunt and yell

Seiz d on the ear with horrible obtrusion ;
Then if aright old legendaries tell,

Wert thou begot by Discord on Confusion !

What tho no name s sonorous power
Was given thee at thy natal hour !
Yet oft I feel thy sacred might,
While concords wing their distant flight.
Such power inspires thy holy son

Sable clerk of Tiverton.
And oft where Otter sports his stream,
I hear thy banded offspring scream.
Thou Goddess ! thou inspir st each throat ;
Tis thou who pour st the scritch owl note !

JUVENILE POEMS, 21

Transported hear st thy children all
Scrape and blow and squeak and squall,
And while old Otter s steeple rings,
Clappest hoarse thy raven wings !

1790.

DEVONSHIRE ROADS.

THE indignant Bard composed this furious ode,
As tir d he dragg d his way thro Plimtree road !
Crusted with filth and stuck in mire
Dull sounds the Bard s bemudded lyre ;
Nathless Revenge and Ire the Poet goad
To pour his imprecations on the road.
Curst road ! whose execrable way
Was darkly shadow d out in Milton s lay,
When the sad fiends thro Hell s sulphureous roads
Took the first survey of their new abodes ;
Or when the fall n Archangel fierce
Dar d through the realms of Night to pierce.
What time the Blood Hound lur d by Human scent
Thro all Confusion s quagmires floundering went.

Nor cheering pipe, nor Bird s shrill note
Around thy dreary paths shall float;
Their boding songs shall scritch owls pour
To fright the guilty shepherds sore,
Led by the wandering fires astray
Thro the dank horrors of thy way !

22 JUVENILE POEMS.

While they their mud-lost sandals hunt
May all the curses, which they grunt
In raging moan like goaded hog,
Alight upon thee, damned Bog !

INSIDE THE COACH.

Tis hard on Bagshot Heath to try

Unclos d to keep the weary eye ;

But ah ! Oblivion s nod to get

In rattling coach is harder yet.
Slumbrous God of half shut eye !

Who lov st with Limbs supine to lie ;
Soother sweet of toil and care

Listen, listen to my prayer ;
And to thy votary dispense

Thy soporific influence !
What tho around thy drowsy head

The seven-fold cap of night be spread,
Yet lift that drowsy head awhile

And yawn propitiously a smile ;
In drizzly rains poppean dews

O er the tir d inmates of the Coach diffuse ;
And when thou st charm d our eyes to rest

Pillowing the chin upon the breast,
Bid many a dream from thy dominions

Wave its various-painted pinions,
Till ere the splendid visions close

JUVENILE POEMS. 23

We snore quartettes in extacy of nose.

While thus we urge our airy course,

Oh may no jolt s electric force

Our fancies from their steeds unhorse,
And call us from thy fairy reign
To dreary Bagshot Heath again !

1790.

If Pegasus will let thee only ride him,
Spurning my clumsy efforts to o erstride him,
Some fresh expedient the Muse will try,
And walk on stilts, although she cannot fly.

DEAR BROTHER,

I HAVE often been surprised that Mathematics,
the quintessence of Truth, should have found
admirers so few and so languid. Frequent con
sideration and minute scrutiny have at length un
ravelled the case ; viz. that though Reason is
feasted, Imagination is starved ; whilst Reason is
luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is
wearily travelling on a dreary desart. To assist
Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the de
sign of the following production. In the execu
tion of it much may be objectionable. The verse
(particularly in the introduction of the ode) may
be accused of unwarrantable liberties, but they
are liberties equally homo^eneal with the exact-

l w

ness of Mathematical disquisition, and the bold
ness of Pindaric daring. I have three strong

24 JUVENILE POEMS.

champions to defend me against the attacks of
Criticism ; the Novelty, the Difficulty, and the
Utility of the work. I may justly plume myself,
that I first have drawn the nymph Mathesis from
the visionary caves of abstracted Idea, and caused
her to unite with Harmony. The first-born of
this Union I now present to you ; with interested
motives indeed as I expect to receive in return
the more valuable offspring of your Muse.

March 31, 1791. Thine ever,

To the Rev. G. C. c T o

O. 1 . \s,

This is now this was erst,
Proposition the first and Problem the first.

i.

ON a given finite line
Which must no way incline ;
To describe an equi
lateral Tri
A, N, G, E, L, E.

Now let A. B.
Be the given line
Which must no way incline ;
The great Mathematician
Makes this Requisition,

That we describe an Equi
lateral Tri
angle on it :
Aid us Reason aid us Wit !

JUVENILE POEMS. "j

II.

From the centre A. at the distance A. B.

Describe the circle B. C. D.
At the distance B. A. from B. the centre
The round A. C. E. to describe boldly venture.

(Third postulate see.)
And from the point C.
In which the circles make a pother
Cutting and slashing one another,

Bid the straight lines a journeying 1 go.
C. A. C. B. those lines will show

To the points, which by A. B. are reckoned,
And postulate the second
For Authority ye know.

A. B. C.

Triumphant shall be
An Equilateral Triangle,
Not Peter Pindar carp, nor Zoilus can wrangle.

in.

Because the point A. is the centre

Of the circular B. C. D.
And because the point B. is the centre

Of the circular A. C. E.
A. C. to A. B. and B. C. to B. A.
Harmoniously equal for ever must stay ;

Then C. A. and B. C.
Both extend the kind hand

To the basis A. B,

26 JUVENILE POEMS.

Unambitiously join d in Equality s Band.
But to the same powers, when two powers are equal,

My mind forebodes the sequel ;
My mind does some celestial impulse teach,

And equalizes each to each.
Thus C. A. with B. C. strikes the same sure al
liance,

That C. A. and B. C. had with A. B. before ;
And in mutual affiance
None attempting to soar

Above another,
The unanimous three
. C. A. and B. C. and A. B.
All are equal, each to his brother,

Preserving the balance of power so true :
Ah ! the like would the proud Autocratix 1 do !
At taxes impending not Britain would tremble,
Nor Prussia struggle her fear to dissemble ;
Nor the Mah met-sprung wight
The great Mussulman
Would stain his Divan
With Urine the soft-flowing daughter of Fright.

IV.

But rein your stallion in, too daring Nine !

Should Empires bloat the scientific line ?
Or with dishevell d hair all madly do ye run

For transport that your task is done ?

1 Empress of Russia.

JUVENILE POEMS.

For done it is the cause is tried !
And Proposition, gentle maid,
Who soothly ask d stern Demonstration s aid,
Has prov d her right, and A. B. C.

Of Angles three
Is shown to be of equal side ;
And now our weary steed to rest in fine,
Tis raised upon A. B. the straight, the given line.

THE NOSE

YE souls unus d to lofty verse,

Who sweep the earth with lowly wing,

Like sand before the blast disperse

A Nose ! a mighty Nose I sing !
As erst Prometheus stole from heaven the fire

To animate the wonder of his hand ;
Thus with unhallow d hands, O muse, aspire,

And from my subject snatch a burning brand !
So like the Nose I sing my verse shall glow
Like Phlegethon my verse in waves of fire shall flow !

Light of this once all darksome spot

Where now their glad course mortals run,

First-born of Sirius begot

Upon the focus of the sun
I ll call thee ! for such thy earthly name

What name so high, but what too low must be?

28 JUVENILE POEMS.

Comets, when most they drink the solar flame

Are but foint types and images of thee !
Burn madly Fire ! o er earth in ravage run,

Then blush for shame more red by fiercer

outdone !

I saw when from the turtle feast

The thick dark smoke in volumes rose !

I saw the darkness of the mist

Encircle thee, O Nose !
Shorn of thy rays thou shott st a fearful gleam

(The turtle quiver d with prophetic fright)
Gloomy and sullen thro the night of steam :

So Satan s Nose when Dunstan urg d to flight,
Glowing from gripe of red hot pincers dread
Athwart the smokes of Hell disastrous twilight shed !

The furies to madness my brain devote

In robes of ice my body wrap !
On billowy flames of fire I float,

Hear ye, my entrails how they snap ?
Some power unst en forbids my lungs to breathe !
What fire-clad meteors round me whizzing fly !
I vitrify thy torrid zone beneath

Proboscis fierce ! I am calcin d ! I die !
Thus, like great Pliny, in Vesuvius fire,

I perish in the blaze while I the blaze admire.

1789.

JUVENILE POEMS. 29

MONODY ON A TEA-KETTLE.

MUSE who sangest late another s pain,

To griefs domestic turn thy coal-black steed !
With slowest steps thy funeral steed must go,
Nodding his head in all the pomp of woe :
Wide scatter round each dark and deadly weed,
And let the melancholy dirge complain, [run)
(While Bats shall shriek and Dogs shall howling
The tea-kettle is spoilt and Coleridge is undone !
Your cheerful songs, ye unseen crickets cease !
Let songs of grief your alter d minds engage !
For he who sang responsive to your lay,
What time the joyous bubbles gan to play,
The sooty swain has felt the fire s fierce rage;
Yes he is gone, and all my woes increase ;

1 heard the Water issuing from the Wound
No more the Tea shall pour its flagrant steams

around !

O Goddess best beloved, delightful Tea ! [vine ?

With thee compar d what yields the madd ning

Sweet power ! who know st to spread the calm
delight,

And the pure joy prolong to midmost night !

Ah ! must I all thy varied sweets resign ?

Enfolded close in grief thy form I see
No more wilt thou extend thy willing- arms,
Receive the fervent Jove and yield him all thy
charms i

30 JUVENILE POEMS.

How sink the mighty low by Fate opprest !
Perhaps O Kettle ! thou by scornful toe
Rude urg d t ignoble place with plaintive din,
May st rust obscure midst heaps of vulgar tin ;
As if no joy had ever seiz d my breast [fly,
When from thy spout the streams did arching
As if infus d thou ne er hadst known t inspire
All the warm raptures of poetic fire !
But hark ! or do I fancy the glad voice

m/ O

" What tho the swain did wondrous charms dis
close

(Not such did Memnon s sister sable drest)
Take these bright arms with royal face imprest,
A better Kettle shall thy soul rejoice,
And with Oblivion s wings o erspread thy woes !"
Thus Fairy Hope can soothe distress and toil ;
On empty Trivets she bids fancied Kettles boil !

1790.

ABSENCE.

A FAREWELL ODE OX QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JESUS
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

WHERE graced with many a classic spoil
Cam rolls his reverend stream along,
1 haste to urge the learned toil
That sternlv chides my love-lorn songr :

tf * O

Ah me ! too mindful of the days
Illumed by Passion s orient rays,

JUVENILE POEMS. 31

When peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health
Enriched me with the best of wealth.

Ah fair Delights ! that o er my soul
On Memory s wing, like shadows fly !
Ah Flowers ! which Joy from Eden stole
While Innocence stood smiling by !
But cease, fond Heart ! this bootless moan :
Those Hours on rapid Pinions flown
Shall yet return, by Absence crowned,
And scatter livelier roses round.
The Sun who ne er remits his fires
On heedless eyes may pour the day :
The Moon, that oft from Heaven retires,
Endears her renovated ray.
What though she leave the sky unblest
To mourn awhile in murky vest ?
When she relumes her lovely Light,
We bless the Wanderer of the Night.

SONNET.

ON THE SAME.

FAREWELL parental scenes ! a sad farewell !
To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,
Tho fluttering round on Fancy s burnish d wings
Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell.
Adieu, adieu ! ye much lov d cloisters pale !

JUVENILE POEMS.

All ! would those happy days return again.
When neath your arches, free from every stain,
I heard of guilt and wonder d at the tale !
Dear haunts ! where oft my simple lays I sang,
Listening meanwhile the echoings of my feet,
Lingering I quit you, with as great a pang,
As when ere while, my weeping childhood, torn
By early sorrow from my native seat,
Mingled its tears with hers my widow d Parent
lorn.

TO THE MUSE.

THO no bold nights to thee belong;

And tho thy lays with conscious fear,

Shrink from Judgment s eye severe,

Yet much I thank thee, Spirit of my song!

For, lovely Muse ! thy sweet employ

Exalts my soul, refines my breast,

Gives each pure pleasure keener zest,

And softens sorrow into pensive Joy.

From thee I learn d the wish to bless,

From thee to commune with my heart ;

From thee, dear Muse ! the gayer part,

To laugh with Pity at the crowds, that press

Where Fashion flaunts her robes by Folly spun,

Whose hues gay varying wanton in the sun.

1789.

JUVENILE POEMS.

33

WITH FIELDING S AMELIA.

VIRTUES and Woes alike too great for man

In the soft tale oft claim the useless sigh ;
For vain the attempt to realize the plan,

On folly s wings must imitation fly.
With other aim has Fielding here display d

Each social duty and each social care ;
With just yet vivid coloring portray d

What every wife should be, what many are
And sure the Parent of a race so sweet
With double pleasure on the page shall dwell,
Each scene with sympathizing breast shall meet,
While Reason still with smiles delights to tell
Maternal hope, that her lov d Progeny
In all but Sorrows shall Amelias be !

ON RECEIVING AN ACCOUNT
THAT HIS ONLY SISTEIt s DEATH WAS INEVITABLE.

THE tearwhich mourn d a brother s fate scarce dry
Pain after pain, and woe succeeding woe
Is my heart destin d for another blow ?
O my sweet sister ! and must thou too die ?
Ah ! how has Disappointment pour d the tear
O er infant Hope destroy d by early frost !
VOL. i. r>

34 JUVENILE POEMS.

How are ye gone, whom most my soul held dear !
Scarce had f lov d you, ere I mourn d you lost ;
Say, is this hollow eye this heartless pain
Fated to rove thro Life s wide cheerless plain
Nor father, brother, sister meets its ken
My woes, my joys unshar d ! Ah ! long ere then
On me thy icy dart, stern Death, be prov d ;
Better to die, than live and not be lov d !

ON SEEING A YOUTH

AFFECTIONATELY WELCOMED BY A SISTER.

I TOO a sister had ! too cruel Death !
How sad remembrance bids my bosom heave !
Tranquil her soul, as sleeping Infant s breath ;
Meek were her manners as a vernal Eve.
Knowledge, that frequent lifts the bloated mind,
Gave her the treasure of a lowly breast,
And Wit to venom d Malice oft assign d,
Dwelt in her bosom in a Turtle s nest.
Cease, busy Memory ! cease to urge the dart ;
Nor on my soul her love to me impress !
For oh I mourn in anguish and my heart
Feels the keen pang, th unutterable distress.
Yet wherefore grieve I that her sorrows cease,
For Life was misery, and the Grave is Peace !

JUVENILE POEMS. 35

THE SAME.

I TOO a sister had, an only sister;

She lov d me dearly and I doted on her ;

To her I pour d forth all my puny sorrows,

(As a sick patient in a nurse s arms)

And of the heart those hidden maladies

That e en from Friendship s eye will shrink asharn d.

O i I have wak d at midnight and have wept

Because she was not.

PAIN.

ONCE could the Morn s first beams, the healthful

breeze,

All nature charm, and gay was every hour :
But ah ! not Music s self, nor fragrant bower
Can glad the trembling sense of wan disease.
Now that the frequent pangs my frame assail,
Now that my sleepless eyes are sunk and dim,
And seas of pain seem waving through each limb
Ah what can all Life s gilded scenes avail?
I view the crowd, whom youth and health inspire,
Hear the loud laugh, and catch the sportive lay,
Then sigh and think I too could laugh and play
And gaily sport it on the Muse s lyre,
Ere Tyrant Pain had chas d away delight,
Ere the wild pulse throbb d anguish thro the night

36 JUVENILE POEMS.

LIFE.

As late I journied o er the extensive plain
Where native Otter sports his scanty stream,

Musing- in torpid woe a sister s pain,

The glorious prospect woke me from the dream.

At every step it widen d to my sight,

Wood, Meadow, verdant Hill, and dreary Steep.
Following- in quick succession of delight,

Till all at once did my eye ravish d sweep !

May this (I cried) my course through Life portray !
New scenes of wisdom may each step display,

And knowledge open as my days advance !
Till what time Death shall pour the undarken d ray,

My eye shall dart thro infinite expanse,
And thought suspended lie in rapture s blissful
Trance.

LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.

O THOU w r ild Fancy, check thy wing ! No more
Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore !
Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight
Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light ;

JUVENILE POEMS. 37

Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day,
With western peasants hail the morning- ray !
Ah ! rather bid the perished pleasures move,
A shadowy train, across the soul of Love !
O er Disappointment s wintry desert fling
Each flower that wreathed the dewy locks of Spring,
When blushing, like a bride, from Hope s trim bovver
She leapt, awakened by the pattering shower.
Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam,
Aid, lovely Sorceress ! aid thy Poet s dream !
With faery wand O bid the Maid arise,
Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes ;
As erst when from the Muses calm abode
I came, with Learning s meed not unbesto\ved ;
When as she twined a laurel round my brow,
And met my kiss, and half returned my vow,
O er all my frame shot rapid my thrilled heart,
And every nerve confessed the electric dart.

dear Deceit ! I see the Maiden rise,

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes !
When first the lark high soaring swells his throat,
Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the loud note,

1 trace her footsteps on the accustomed lawn,
I mark her glancing mid the gleam of dawn.
When the bent flower beneath the night dew weeps
And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps,

Amid the paly radiance soft and sad,

She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad.

With her along the streamlet s brink I rove ;

38 JUVENILE POEMS.

With her I list the warblings of the grove ;
And seems in each low wind her voice to float,
Lone whispering 1 Pity in each soothing- note !

Spirits of Love ! ye heard her name ! Obey
The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair.
Whether on clustering pinions ye are there,
Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle trees,
Or with fond languishment around my fair
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair ;
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way,
Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!

Spirits ! to you the infant Maid was given
Formed by the wonderous Alchemy of Heaven !
No fairer Maid does Love s wide empire know,
No fairer Maid e er heaved the bosom s snow.
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly ;
A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye ;
Love lights her smile in Joy s red nectar dips
His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips.
She speaks! and hark that passion- warbled song
Still, Fancy! still that voice, those notes prolong.
As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls
Shall wake the softened echoes of Heaven s Halls !

O (have I sighed) were mine the wizard s rod,
Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful God !
A flower-entangled Arbour I would seem
To shield my Love from Noontide s sultry beam :

JUVENILE POEMS. 39

Or bloom a Myrtle, from, whose odorous boughs
My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows.
When Twilight stole across the fading vale,
To fan my Love I d be the Evening Gale ;
Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest,
And flutter my faint pinions on her breast !
On Seraph wing I d float a Dream by night,
To soothe my Love with shadows of delight :
Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies,
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes !

As when the savage, who his drowsy frame
Had basked beneath the Sun s unclouded flame,
Awakes amid the troubles of the air,
The skiey deluge, and white lightning s glare
Aghast he scours before the tempest s sweep,
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep :
So tossed by storms along Life s wildering way,
Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day,
When by my native brook I wont to rove,
While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love.

Dear native brook ! like Peace, so placidly
Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek !
Dear native brook ! where first young Poesy
Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream!
Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet s cheek,
As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream !
Dear native haunts ! where Virtue still is gay,
Where Friendship s fix d star sheds a mellowed ray,

40 JUVENILE POEMS.

Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears,
Where softened Sorrow smiles within her tears ;
And Memory, with a Vestal s chaste employ,
Unceasing; feeds the lambent flame of joy !
No more your sky-larks melting from the sight
Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight
No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet
With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat.
Yet dear to Fancy s eye your varied scene
Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between !
Yet sweet to Fancy s" ear the warbled song,
That soars on Morning s wing your vales among.

Scenes of my Hope ! the aching eye ye leave
Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve I
Tearful and saddening with the saddened blaze
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze :
Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend,
Till chill and damp the moonless night descend.

THE ROSE.

As late each flower that sweetest blows
I plucked, the Garden s pride !
Within the petals of a Rose
A sleeping Love I spied.

JUVENILE POEMS. 41

Around his brows a beamy wreath
Of many a lucent hue ;
All purple glowed his cheek, beneath,
Inebriate with dew.

I softly seized the unguarded Power,
Nor scared his balmy rest :
And placed him, caged within the flower,
On spotless Sara s breast.

But when unweeting of the guile
Awoke the prisoner sweet,
He struggled to escape awhile
And stamped his faery feet.

Ah ! soon the soul- entrancing sight

Subdued the impatient boy !

He gazed ! he thrilled with deep delight !

Then clapped his wings for joy.

" And O !" he cried " of magic kind

What charms this Throne endear !

Some other Love let Venus find

I ll fix my empire here."

THE KISS.

ONE kiss, dear maid ! I said and sighed-
Your scorn the little boon denied.
Ah why refuse the blameless bliss ?
Can danger lurk within a kiss ?

42 JUVENILE POEMS.

Yon viewless Wanderer of the vale,
The Spirit of the Western Gale,
At Morning s break, at Evening s close
Inhales the sweetness of the Ptose,
And hovers o er the uninjured Bloom
Sighing back the soft perfume.
Vigour to the Zephyr s wing
Her nectar-breathing Kisses fling ;
And He the glitter of the Dew
Scatters on the Rose s hue.
Bashful lo ! she bends her head,
And darts a blush of deeper Red !

Too well those lovely lips disclose
The triumphs of the opening Rose ;
O fair ! O graceful ! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low,
Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No!
The whispered " No" how little meant!
Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent !
For on those lovely lips the while
Dawns the soft relenting smile,
And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy
The gentle violence of Joy.

JUVENILE POEMS. 43

TO A YOUNG ASS.
ITS MOTHER BEING TETHERED NEAR IT.

POOR little Foal of an oppressed Race !
I love the languid Patience of thy face :
And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged Coat, and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled Spirits hath dismayed,
That never thou dost sport along the glade ?
And (most unlike the nature of things young-)
That earthward still thy moveless head is hung ?
Do thy prophetic Fears anticipate,
Meek Child of Misery ! thy future fate ?
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
" Which patient Merit of the Unworthy takes?"
Or is thy sad heart thrilled with filial pain
To see thy wretched Mother s shortened Chain ?
And, truly very piteous is her Lot
Chained to a Log within a narrow spot,
Where the close-eaten Grass is scarcely seen,
While sweet around her weaves the tempting Green,
Poor Ass ! thy master should have learnt to show
Pity best taught by fellowship of Woe !
For much I fear me that He lives like thee,
Half famished in a land of Luxury !
How askingly its footsteps hither bend,
*.t seems to say, "And have I then one Friend?"
Innocent Foal ! thou poor despised Forlorn !

44 JUVENILE POEMS.

I hail thee Brother spite of the fool s scorn !
And fain would take thee with me, in the Dell
Of Peace and mild Equality to dwell,
Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his

bride,

And Laughter tickle Plenty s ribless side !
How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay !
Yea ! and more musically sweet to me
Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,
Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest
The aching of pale Fashion s vacant breast !

HAPPINESS.

Ox wide, or narrow scale shall Man
Most happily describe life s plan ?
Say, shall he bloom and wither there,
Where first his infant buds appear ;
Or upwards dart with soaring force,
And tempt some more ambitious course ?

Obedient now to Hope s command,
I bid each humble wish expand,
And fair and bright Life s prospects seem,
While Hope displays her cheering beam,
And Fancy s vivid colorings stream,
While Emulation stands me nigh
The Goddess of the eager eye.

JUVENILE POEMS.

With foot advanc d and anxious heart
Now for the fancied goal I start :
Ah ! why will Reason intervene
Me and my promised joys between !
She stops my course, she chains my speed,
While thus her forceful words proceed.
" Ah ! listen, youth, ere yet too late,
What evils on thy course may wait. !
To bow the head, to bend the knee
A minion of Servility,
At low Pride s frequent frowns to sigh,
Ana watch the glance in Folly s eye ;
To toil intense, yet toil in vain,
And feel with what a hollow pain
Pale Disappointment hangs her head
O er darling Expectation dead !

" The scene is changed and Fortune s gale
Shall belly out each prosperous sail.
Yet sudden wealth full well I know
Did never Happiness bestow.
That wealth, to which we were not born
Dooms us to sorrow or to scorn.
Behold yon flock which long had trod
O er the short grass of Devon s sod,
To Lincoln s rank rich meads transferr d,
And in their fate thy own be fear d ;
Through every limb contagions fly,
Deform d and chok d they burst and die.

" When Luxury opens wide her arms,
And smiling wooes thee to those charms,

40 JUVENILE POEMS.

Whose fascination thousands own,
Shall thy brows wear the stoic frown ?
And when her goblet she extends
Which madd ning 1 myriads press around,
What power divine thy soul befriends
That thou shouldst dash it to the ground ?
No, thou shalt drink, and thou shalt know
Her transient bliss, her lasting woe,
Her maniac joys, that know no measure,
And riot rude and painted pleasure ;
Till (sad reverse !) the Enchantress vile

^f

To frowns converts her magic smile ;
Her train impatient to destroy,
Observe her frown with gloomy joy ;
On thee with harpy fangs they seize
The hideous offspring of Disease,
Swoll n Dropsy ignorant of Rest,
And Fever garb d in scarlet vest,
Consumption driving the quick hearse,
And Gout that howls the frequent curse,
With Apoplex of heavy head
That surely aims his dart of lead.

" But say, Life s joys unmix d were given
To thee some favorite of Heaven :
Within, without, tho all were health
Yet what e en thus are Fame, Power, Wealth,
But sounds that variously express,
What s thine already Happiness !
Tis thine the converse deep to hold
With all the famous sons of old ;
And thine the happy waking dream

JUVENILE POEMS. 47

While Hope pursues some favorite theme,
As oft when Night o er Heaven is spread,
Round this maternal seat you tread,
Where far from splendour, far from riot,
In silence wrapt sleeps careless quiet.
Tis thine with fancy oft to talk,
And thine the peaceful evening- walk ;
And what to thee the sweetest are
The setting sun, the evening star
The tints, which live along the sky,
And[ Moon that meets thy raptur d eye,
Where oft the tear shall grateful start,
Dear silent pleasures of the Heart !
Ah ! Being blest, for Heaven shall lend
To share thy simple joys a friend !
Ah ! doubly blest, if Love supply
His influence to complete thy joy,
If chance some lovely maid thou find
To read thy visage in thy mind.

" One blessing more demands thy care :
Once more to Heaven address the prayer :
For humble independence pray
The guardian genius of thy way ;
Whom (sages say) in days of yore
Meek competence to wisdom bore,
So shall thy little vessel glide
With a fair breeze adown the tide,
And Hope, if e er thou ginst to sorrow
Remind thee of some fair to-morrow,
Till death shall close thy tranquil eye
While Faith proclaims " thou shalt not di* ."

4S JUVENILE POEMS.

DOMESTIC PEACE.

TELL me, on what holy ground
May Domestic Peace be found
Halcyon Daughter of the skies !
Far on fearful wings she flies.
From the pomp of sceptered State,
From the Rebel s noisy hate,

/

In a cottaged vale She dwells
/ Listening to the Sabbath bells !
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honour s meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And conscious of the past employ
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

THE SIGH.

WHEN Youth his faery reign began
Ere sorrow had proclaimed me man ;
While Peace the present hour beguiled,
And all the lovely Prospect smiled ;
Then Mary ! mid my lightsome glee
I heav d the painless Sigh for thee.

JUVENILE POEMS. 49

And when, along the waves of woe,
My harassed Heart was doomed to know
The frantic burst of Outrage keen,
And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen ;
Then shipwrecked on Life s stormy sea
I heaved an anguished Sigh for thee !

But soon Reflection s power imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast ;
And sickly hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die :
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heaved a languid Sigh for thee !

And though in distant climes to roam,
A wanderer from my native home,
I fain would soothe the sense of Care,
And lull to sleep the Joys that were,
Thy Image may not banished be
Still, Mary ! still I sigh for thee.

June, 1794.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

ERE Sin could blight or Sorrow fade.

Death came with friendly care ;
The opening bud to Heaven conveyed,

And bade it blossom there.

VOL. I. E

50 JUVENILE POEMS.

ON IMITATION.

-

ALL are not born to soar and ah ! how few

In tracks, where Wisdom leads, their paths pursue !

Contagious when to wit or wealth allied,

Folly and Vice diffuse their venom wide.

On Folly every fool his talent tries ;

It asks some toil to imitate the wise ;

Tho few like Fox can speak like Pitt can think

Yet all like Fox can game like Pitt can drink.

O, Curas hominum ! 0, quantum est in rebus inane .

THE fervid Sun had more than halv d the day,
When gloomy on his couch Philedon lay ;
His feeble frame consumptive as his purse,
His aching head did wine and women curse ;
His fortune ruin d and his wealth decay d,
Clamorous his Duns, his gaming debts unpaid,
The youth indignant seiz d his tailor s bill,
And on its back thus wrote with moral quill :
" Various as colors in the rainbow shown,
Or similar in emptiness alone,
How false, how vain are Man s pursuits below !

JUVENILE POEMS. 51

Wealth, Honor, Pleasure what can ye bestow ?
Yet see, how high and low, and young and old
Pursue the all delusive power of Gold.
Fond man ! should all Peru thy empire own,
For thee tho all Golconda s jewels shone,
What greater bliss could all this wealth supply ?
What, but to eat and drink and sleep and die ?
Go, tempt the stormy sea, the burning soil
Go, waste the night in thought, the day in toil,
Dark frowns the rock, and fierce the tempests rave-
Thy ingots go the unconscious deep to pave !
Or thunder at thy door the midnight train,
Or death shall knock that never knocks in vain.
Next Honor s sons come bustling on amain ;
I laugh with pity at the idle train.
Infirm of soul ! who think st to lift thy name
Upon the waxen wings of human fame,
Who for a sound, articulated breath
Gazest undaunted in the face of death !
What art thou but a Meteor s glaring light
Blazing a moment and then sunk in night ?
Caprice which rais d thee high shall hurl thee low
Or envy blast the laurels on thy brow.
To such poor joys could ancient Honor lead
When empty fame was toiling Merit s mead ;
To Modern Honor other lays belong ;
Profuse of joy and Lord of right and wrong,
Honor can game, drink, riot in the stew,
Cut a friend s throat ; what cannot Honor do ?
Ah me the storm within can Honor still

52 JUVENILE POEMS.

For Julio s death, whom Honor made me kill ?
Or will this lordly Honor tell the way
To pay those debts, which Honor makes me pay ?
Or if with pistol and terrific threats
I make some traveller pay my Honor s debts,
A med cine for this wound can Honor give ?
Ah, no ! my Honor dies to make my Honor live.*
But see ! young- Pleasure, and her train advance,
And joy and laughter w r ake the inebriate dance ;
Around my neck she throws her fair white arms,
I meet her loves, and madden at her charms.
For the gay grape can joys celestial move,
And what so sweet below as Woman s love ?
With such high transport every moment flies,
I curse experience, that he makes me wise ;
For at his frown the dear deliriums flew,
And the chang d scene now wears a gloomy hue.
A hideous hag th Enchantress Pleasure seems,
And all her joys appear but feverous dreams.
The vain Resolve still broken and still made,
Disease and loathing and remorse invade ;
The charm is vanish d and the bubble s broke,
A slave to pleasure is a slave to smoke !"
Such lays repentant did the Muse supply ;
When as the Sun was hastening down the sky,
In glittering state twice fifty guineas come.
His Mother s plate antique had rais d the sum.
Forth leap d Philedon of new life possest :
Tvvas Brookes s all till two,- - twas Hackett s all
the rest !

JUVENILE POEMS. 53

PROGRESS OF VICE.

DEEP in the gulph of Vice and Woe
Leaps man at once with headlong throw ?
Him inborn Truth and Virtue guide,
Whose guards are shame and conscious pride ;

In some gay hour Vice steals into the breast ;

Perchance she wears some softer Virtue s vest.

By unperceiv d degrees she tempts to stray,
Till far from Virtue s path she leads the feet away.

Then swift the soul to disenthrall
Will Memory the past recall,
And fear before the Victim s eyes
Bid future ills and dangers rise. [bine

But hark ! the voice, the lyre, their charms com-
Gay sparkles in the cup the generous wine ;
Th inebriate dance the fair frail nymph inspires,
And Virtue vanquish d scorn d with hasty flight
retires.

But soon to tempt the pleasures cease ;
Yet shame forbids return to peace,
And stern necessity will force
Still to urge on the desperate course.
The drear black paths of Vice the wretch must try,
Where Conscience flashes horror on each eye,
Where Hate where Murder scowl where starts

Affright !

Ah ! close the scene, ah ! close for dreadful is
the sm-ht.

JWLMLL POEMS.

LINES

WJMTTEJf A7 - A EMS, ROSS, FORMERLY

THE "MAJT OF ROJ."

CHER than Miser o er hi* counties hoard*,
NoWer than King*, or king-diluted Lord*,
Here dwelt the Man of ROM : O I <*, hear!
Departed * * rcirerent t/

md to the friendleM, I *ick man health,
rth generous joy he viewed his mode* t wealth ;
He heard the widow * heaven-breathed pray / of

*,

He narked the Sheltered orphan*! t/.-^rful gaze,
<; the forrow *brirelied !;i.y,

rs ..- -, . ,./. i -.-,/. ,,o ,;; Ijrlfl r;>v.

Beoea* *red momento pa**,

; good man name one grateful gla :
tier zeftfhail =-.oul,

<^d howl.
h MV- -.f ul Kcene

I , . ;, : . .. . :. , ;, ":;.:,;< }..,) fl !,< .|j ;

>//v;at v//t}( fj<:;t/f. |I

in tjio

nn-lt,

dream of Goodne*; . batt /":/</ / :

JUVENILE POEMS-. 55

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE.

I.

HEARD ST thou yon universal cry,

And dost thou linger still on Gallia s shore ?
Go, Tyranny! beneath some barbarous sky
Thy terrors lost, and ruin d power deplore !
What tho through many a groaning age
Was felt thy keen suspicious rage,
Yet Freedom rous d by fierce Disdain
Has wildly broke thy triple chain,
And like the storm which earth s deep entrails hide,
At length has burst its way and spread the ruins
wide.

*

IV.

In sighs their sickly breath was spent ; each gleam
Of Hope had ceas d the long long day to cheer ;

Or if delusive, in some flitting dream,

It gave them to their friends and children dear
Awak d by lordly Insult s sound
To all the doubled horrors round,
Oft shrunk they from Oppression s band
While anguish rais d the desperate hand

For silent death ; or lost the mind s control, /*

Thro every burning vein would tides of Frenzy roll.

56 JUVENILE POEMS.

% V.

But cease, ye pitying- bosoms, cease to bleed !

Such scenes no more demand the tear humane ;
I see, I see ! glad Liberty succeed

With every patriot virtue in her train !
And mark yon peasant s raptured eyes ;
Secure he views his harvests rise ;
No fetter vile the mind shall know,
And Eloquence shall fearless glow.
Yes ! Liberty the soul of Life shall reign,
Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro every
vein !

VI.

Shall France alone a Despot spurn ?

Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care ?

Lo, round thy standard Belgia s heroes burn,
Tho Power s blood-stain d streamers fire the air,
And wider yet thy influence spread,
Nor e er recline thy weary head,
Till every land from pole to pole
Shall boast one independent soul !

And still, as erst, let favor d Britain be

First ever of the first and freest of the free !

JUVENILE POEMS. 57

LINES

TO A BEAUTIFUL SPUING IN A VILLAGE.

/

ONCEmore, sweet Stream! with slow foot wandering
I bless thy milky waters cold and clear. [near,
Escaped the flashing of the noontide hours,
With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers
(Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn)
My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn.
For not through pathless grove with murmur rude
Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph, Solitude ;
jNor thine unseen in cavern depths to well,
The hermit-fountain of some dripping cell !
Pride of the Vale ! thy useful streams supply
The scattered cots and peaceful hamlet nigh.
The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks
With infant uproar and soul-soothing pranks,
Released from school, their little hearts at rest,
Launch paper navies on thy waveless breast.
The rustic here at eve with pensive look
Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook,
Or starting pauses with hope-mingled dread
To list the much-loved maid s accustomed tread :
She, vainly mindful of her dame s command,
i Loiters, the long-filled pitcher in her hand.

Unboastful Stream ! thy fount with pebbled falls
The faded form of past delight recalls,

58 JUVENILE POEMS.

What time the morning 1 sun of Hope arose,
And all was joy ; save when another s woes
A transient gloom upon my soul imprest,
Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast.
Life s current then ran sparkling to the noon,
Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon :
Ah ! now it works rude brakes and thorns among 1 ;
Or o er the rough rock bursts and foams along !

J

LINES ON A FRIEND

WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY
CALUMNIOUS REPORTS.

EDMUND ! thy grave with aching eye I scan,

And inly groan for Heaven s poor outcast Man !

Tis tempest all or gloom : in early youth

If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of Truth

We force to start amid her feigned caress

Vice, siren-hag ! in native ugliness ;

A Brother s fate will haply rouse the tear,

And on we go in heaviness and fear !

But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure s bower

Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour, [ground,

The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted

And mingled forms of Misery rise around :

Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,

That courts the future woe to hide the past ;

Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side,

JUVENILE POEMS. 59

And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied :
Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain,
Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain.
Rest, injur d shade ! Shall Slander squatting near
Spit her cold venom in a dead Man s ear?
Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow
In Merit s joy, and Poverty s meek woe;
Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.
Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,
And in thy heart they withered ! Such chill dew
Wan Indolence on each young blossom
And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,
With eye that rolled around in asking gaze,
And tongue that trafficked in the trade of praise.
Thy follies such ! the hard world marked them well !
Were they more wise, the proud who never fell ?
Rest, injured shade ! the poor man s grateful prayer
On heaven-w r ard wing thy wounded soul shall bear.
As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And sit me down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of fate ;
To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned
Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot s part,
And Pity s sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.
Sloth-jaundiced all ! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship s precious pearls, like hour-glass
sand.

60 JUVENILE POEMS.

I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang" in Morning s feverous doze.

Is this piled earth our Being s passless mound ?
Tell me, cold grave ! is death with poppies crowned ?
Tired Sentinel ! mid fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod !

TO A YOUNG LADY,

WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

MUCH on my early youth I love to dwell,
Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell,
Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wondered at the tale !
Yet though the hours flew by on careless w T ing,
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing.
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom
Mourned with the breeze, O Lee Boo I 1 o er thy

tomb.

Where er I wandered, Pity still was near,
Breathed from the heart and glistened in the tear :

1 Lee Boo, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelew
Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died
of the small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich church-yard.
See Keate s Account.

JUVENILE POEMS. 61

No knell that tolled, but filled my anxious eye,
And suffering Nature wept that one should die ! 1

Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast,

Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping- West :

When slumbering Freedom roused by high Disdain

With giant fury burst her triple chain !

Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glowed ;

Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flowed ;

Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies

She came, and scattered battles from her eyes !

Then Exultation waked the patriot fire

And swept with wild hand the Tyrtaean lyre :

Red from the Tyrant s wound I shook the lance,

And strode in joy the reeking plains of France !

Fallen is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low,
And my heart aches, though Mercy struck the blow.
With wearied thought once more I seek the shade,
Where peaceful Virtue weaves the myrtle braid.
And O ! if Eyes whose holy glances roll,
Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul ;
If Smiles more winning, and a gentler Mien
Than the love-wildered Maniac s brain hath seen

>

Shaping celestial forms in vacant air,
If these demand the impassioned Poet s care
If Mirth and softened Sense and Wit refined,
The blameless features of a lovely mind ;

1 Southey s Retrospect.

62 JUVENILE POEMS.

Then haply shall my trembling- hand assign
No fading wreath to Beauty s saintly shrine.
Nor, Sara! thou these early flowers refuse
Ne er lurked the snake beneath their simple hues ;
No purple bloom the Child of Nature brings
From Flattery s night-shade : as he feels he sings.

September, 1792.

SONNET I.

" Content, as random Fancies might inspire,
If his weak harp at times or lonely lyre
He struck with desultory hand, and drew
Some softened tones to Nature not untrue."

BOWLES.

MY heart has thanked thee, Bowles ! for those soft

strains

Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring
Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring !
For hence not callous to the mourner s pains
Through Youth s gay prime and thornless paths I

went :

And when the mightier throes of mind began,
And drove me forth, a thought-bewildered man,
Their mild and manliest melancholy lent
A mingled charm, such as the pang consigned
To slumber, though the big tear it renewed ;

JUVENILE POEMS. 63

Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood
Over the wavy and tumultuous mind,
As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep
Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep.

SONNET II.

As late I lay in slumber s shadowy vale,

With wetted cheek and in a mourner s guise,

I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise :

She spake! not sadder moans the autumnal gale

" Great Son of Genius ! sweet to me thy name,

Ere in an evil hour with altered voice

Thou bad st Oppression s hireling crew rejoice

Blasting with wizard spell my laurelled fame.

Yet never, Burke ! thou drank st Corruption s

bowl !

Thee stormy Pity and the cherished lure
Of Pomp, and proud Precipitance of soul
Wildered with meteor fires. Ah Spirit pure !
^That error s mist had left thy purged eye :
So might I clasp thee with a Mother s joy !"

64 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET III.

THOUGH roused by that dark Vizir Riot rude
Have driven our Priestly o er the ocean swell:

*/

Though Superstition and her wolfish brood
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell ;
Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell !
For lo ! Religion at his strong behest
Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell,
And flings to earth her tinsel-glittering vest,
Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy ;
And Justice wakes to bid the Oppressor wail
Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly:
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil
To smile with fondness on her gazing son !

SONNET IV.

i\

WHJEN British Freedom for a happier land
Spread her broad wings, that fluttered with affright,
Erskine ! thy voice she heard, and paused her

flight

Sublime of hope ! For dreadless thou didst stand
(Thy censer, glowing with the hallowed flame)
A hireless Priest before the insulted shrine,

JUVENILE POEMS. 65

And at her altar pour the stream divine
Of unmatched eloquence. Therefore thy name
Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast
With blessings heaven-ward breathed. And when

the doom

Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb
Thy light shall shine : as sunk beneath the West
Though the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze,
Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze.

SONNET V.

IT was some Spirit, Sheridan ! that breathed
O er thy young mind such wildly various power !
My soul hath marked thee in her shaping hour,
Thy temples with Hymmettian flow rets wreathed :
And sweet thy voice, as when o er Laura s bier
Sad music trembled through Vauclusa s glade ;
Sweet, as at dawn the love-lorn Serenade
That wafts soft dreams to Slumber s listening ear.
Now patriot rage and indignation high
Swell the full tones ! And now thine eye-beams

dance

Meanings of Scorn and W r it s quaint revelry !
Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance
The Apostate by the brainless rout adored,
As erst that elder Fiend beneath great Michael s

sword.
VOL. i. F

66 JUVENILE FOEMS.

SONNET VI.

O WHAT a loud and fearful shriek was there,

A s though a thousand souls one death-groan poured !

Ah me ! they saw beneath a hireling s sword

Their Kosciusko fall ! Through the swart air

(As pauses the tired Cossac s barbarous yell

Of triumph) on the chill and midnight gale

Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell

The dirge of murdered Hope ! while Freedom pale

Bends in such anguish o er her destined bier,

As if from eldest time some Spirit meek

Had gathered in a mystic urn each tear

That ever on a Patriot s furrowed cheek

Fit channel found, and she had drained the bowl

In the mere wilfulness, and sick despair of soul !

SONNET VII.

As when far off the warbled strains are heard
That soar on Morning s wing the vales among.
Within his cage the imprisoned matin bird
Swells the full chorus with a generous song:
He bathes no pinion in the dewy light,
No Father s joy, no Lover s bliss he shares,

JUVENILE POEMS. 67

Yet still the rising- radiance cheers his sight ;
j| His fellows freedom soothes the captive s cares !
Thou, Fayette ! who didst wake with startling voice
Life s better sun from that long wintry night,
Thus in thy Country s triumphs shalt rejoice,
And mock with raptures high the dungeon s might:
For lo ! the morning struggles into day,
And Slavery s spectres shriek and vanish from the
ray!

SONNET VIII.

THOU gentle Look, that didst my soul beguile,

Why hast thou left me ? Still in some fond dream

Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile !

As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam :

\Vhat time, in sickly mood, at parting day

I lay me down and think of happier years ;

Of Joys, that glimmered in Hope s twilight ray,

Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.

O pleasant days of hope for ever gone 1

Could I recall you ! But that thought is vain.

Availeth not Persuasion s sweetest tone

To lure the fleet-winged Travellers back again :

Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam

Like the bright Rainbow on a willowy stream.

68 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET IX.

PALE Roamer through the night ! thou poor For
lorn !

Remorse that man on his death-bed possess,
Who in the credulous hour of tenderness
Betrayed, then cast thee forth to want and scorn !
The world is pitiless : the chaste one s pride

. -7- ~ .

Mimic of Virtue scowls on thy distress :
Thy Loves and they, that envied thee, deride :
And Vice alone will shelter wretchedness !
O ! I could weep to think, that there should be
Cold-bosomed lewd ones, who endure to place
Foul offerings on the shrine of misery,
And force from famine the caress of Love ;
May He shed healing- on the sore disgrace,
He, the great Comforter that rules above!

SONNET X.

SWEET Mercy ! how my very heart has bled
To see thee, poor Old Man ! and thy gray hairs
Hoar with the snowy blast : while no one cares
To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head.
My Father ! throw away this tattered vest
That mocks thy shivering ! take my garment use

JUVENILE POEMS. 69

A young- man s arm ! I ll melt these frozen dews
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy

breast.

My Sara too shall tend thee, like a Child :
And thou shalt talk, in our fire-side s recess,
Of purple pride, that scowls on wretchedness.
He did not so, the Galilean mild,
Who met the Lazars turned from rich men s doors,
And called them Friends, and healed their noisome

sores !

SONNET XI.

THOU bleedest, my poor Heart ! and thy distress
Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile,
And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while
Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to Hope s whisper bland ?
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
W^hen Jealousy with feverous fancies pale
Jarred thy fine fibres with a maniac s hand ?
Faint was that Hope, and rayless ! Yet twas fair,
And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest :
Thou shouldst have loved it most, when most op-

prest,

And nursed it with an agony of care,
Even as a Mother her sweet infant heir
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast \

70 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET XII.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE " ROBBERS."

SCHILLER ! that hour I would have wished to die,
If through the shuddering- midnight I had sent
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent
That fearful voice, a famished Father s cry
Lest in some after moment aught more mean
Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout
Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout
Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene !
Ah ! Bard tremendous in sublimity !
Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood
Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye
Beneath some -vast old tempest-swinging wood !
Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood;
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy !

LINES

COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBING THE LEFT ASCENT OF

BROCK LEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE,

MAY, 17S5.

WITH many a pause and oft reverted eye

I climb the Coomb s ascent : sweet songsters near

Warble in shade their wild -wood melody :

"Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear.

JUVENILE POEMS. 71

Up scour the startling stragglers of the Flock
That on green plots o er precipices browse :
From the deep fissures of the naked rock
The Yew tree bursts ! Beneath its dark green boughs
(Mid which the May- thorn blends its blossoms

white)

Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats,
I rest: and now have gained the topmost site.
Ah ! what a luxury of landscape meets
My gaze ! Proud towers, and cots more dear to me,
Elm-shadow d fields, and prospect-bounding sea !
Deep sighs my lonely heart : I drop the tear :
Enchanting spot ! O were my Sara here !

LINES

IN THE MANNER OF SPENSER.

PEACE, that on a lilied bank dost love
To rest thine head beneath an olive tree,

1 would, that from the pinions of thy dove
One quill withouten pain yplucked might be !
For O ! I wish my Sara s frowns to flee,

And fain to her some soothing song would write,

Lest she resent my rude discourtesy,

Who vowed to meet her ere the morninsr light,

O O "

But broke my plighted word ah ! false and re
creant wight !

72 JUVENILE POEMS.

Last night as I my weary head did pillow
With thoughts of my dissevered Fair engrost,
Chill Fancy drooped wreathing herself with willow,
As though my breast entombed a pining ghost.
" From some blest couch, young Rapture s bridal

boast,

Rejected Slumber ! hither wing thy way ;
But leave me with the matin hour, at most !
As night-closed floweret to the orient ray,
My sad heart will expand, when I the Maid survey."

But Love, who heard the silence of my thought,
Contrived a too successful wile, I ween :
And whispered to himself, with malice fraught
" Too long our Slave the Damsel s smiles hath seen:
To-morrow shall he ken her altered mien !"
He spake, and ambushed lay, till on my bed
The morning shot her dewy glances keen,
When as I gan to lift my drowsy head
" Now, Bard ! I ll work thee woe !" the laughing
Elfin said.

Sleep, softly-breathing God ! his downy wing
Was fluttering* now, as quickly to depart ;
When twanged an arrow from Love s mystic string,
With pathless wound it pierced him to the heart.
Was there some magic in the Elfin s dart ?
Or did he strike my couch with wizard lance ?
For straight so fair a Form did upwards start
(No fairer decked the bowers of old Romance)

JUVENILE POMS. 73

That Sleep enamoured grew, nor moved from his

sweet trance !

My Sara came, with gentlest look divine ;
Bright shone her eye, yet tender was its beam :
I felt the pressure of her lip to mine !
Whispering we went, and Love was all our theme
Love pure and spotless, as at first, I deem,
He sprang from Heaven ! Such joys with Sleep did
That I the living image of my dream [ bide

Fondly forgot. Too late I woke, and sigh d
" ! how shall I behold my Love at even-tide !"

IMITATED FROM OSSIAN

THE stream with languid murmur creeps,

In Lumin s flowery vale :
Beneath the dew the Lily weeps

Slow- waving to the gale.

" Cease, restless gale ! it seems to say,
Nor wake me with thy sighing !

The honours of my vernal day
On rapid wing are flying.

" To-morrow shall the Traveller come
Who late beheld me blooming :

His searching eye shall vainly roam
The dreary vale of Lumin."

74 JUVENILE POEMS

With eager gaze and wetted cheek

My wonted haunts along,
Thus, faithful Maiden ! thou shalt seek

The Youth of simplest song.

But I along the breeze shall roll
The voice of feeble power ;

And dwell, the Moon-beam of thy soul,
In Slumber s nightly hour.

THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHOMA.

How long will ye round me be swelling,

O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea ?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,

Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathloma

In the steps of my beauty I strayed ;
The warriors beheld Ninathoma,

And they blessed the white-bosomed Maid !

A Ghost ! by my cavern it darted !

In moon-beams the Spirit was drest
For lovely appear the departed

When they visit the dreams of my rest !
But disturbed by the tempest s commotion

Fleet the shadowy forms of delight
Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean !

To howl through my cavern by night.

JUVENILE POEMS.

IMITATED FROM THE WELSH.

IF, while my passion I impart,
You deem my words untrue,

O place your hand upon my heart
Feel how it throbs for you !

Ah no ! reject the thoughtless claim

In pity to your Lover !
That thrilling touch would aid the flame,

It wishes to discover.

TO AN INFANT.

AH ! cease thy tears and sobs, my little Life !
I did but snatch away the unclasped knife :
Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye,
And to quick laughter change this peevish cry
Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of woe,-
Tutored by pain each source of pain to know !
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire ;
Alike the Good, the 111 offend thy sight,
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright !
Untaught, yet wise ! mid all thy brief alarms
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother s arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest t

76 JUVENILE POEMS.

Man s breathing Miniature ! thou mak st me sigh-
A Babe art thou and such a Thing- arn I !
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship s mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure s altar glow !

O thou that rearest with celestial aim

The future Seraph in my mortal frame,

Thrice holy Faith ! whatever thorns I meet

As on I totter with unpractised feet,

Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee,

Meek nurse of souls through their long infancy !

LINES

WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER,

SEPTEMBER, 1795, IN ANSWER TO A LETTER

FROM BRISTOL.

Good verse most s;ood, and bad verse then seems better

Received from absent friend by way of Letter.

For what so sweet can laboured lays impart

As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart ? ANON.

NOR travels my meandering eye
The starry wilderness on high ;

Nor now with curious sight
I mark the glow-worm, as I pass,
Move with " green radiance" through the grass,

An emerald of light.

JUVENILE POEMS. /

ever present to my view !
My wafted spirit is with you,

And soothes your boding 1 fears :

1 see you all oppressed with gloom
Sit lonely in that cheerless room

Ah me ! You are in te&rs !

Beloved Woman ! did you fly

Chilled Friendship s dark disliking eye,

Or Mirth s untimely din ?
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,

When aches the Void within

But why with sable wand unblest
Should Fancy rouse within my breast

Dim-visaged shapes of Dread ?
Untenanting* its beauteous clay
My Sara s soul has winged its way,

And hovers round my head !

I felt it prompt the tender dream,
When slowly sank the day s last g leam ;

You roused each gentler sense,
As sighing o er the blossom s bloom
Meek Evening- wakes its soft perfume

With viewless influence.

And hark, my Love ! The sea-breeze moans
Through yon reft house ! O er rolling stones

JUVENILE POEMS.

In bold ambitious sweep,
The onward-surging tides supply
The silence of the cloudless sky

With mimic thunders deep.

Dark reddening fro%i the channelled Isle 1
(Where stands one solitary pile

Unslated by the blast)
The watchfire, like a sullen star
Twinkles to many a dozing tar

Rude cradled on the mast.

Even there beneath that light-house tower-
In the tumultuous evil hour

Ere Peace with Sara came,
Time was, I should have thought it sweet
To count the echoings of my feet,

And watch the storm-vexed flame.

And there in black soul-jaundiced fit
A sad gloom-pampered Man to sit,

And listen to the roar :
When mountain surges bellowing deep
With an uncouth monster leap

Plunged foaming on the shore.

Then by the lightning s blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shattered bark;

1 The Holmes, in the Bristol Channel.

JUVENILE POEMS. 79

Her vain distress-guns hear ;
And when a second sheet of light
Flashed o er the blackness of the night

To see no vessel there !

But Fancy now more gaily sings ;
Or if awhile she droop her wings,

As sky-larks mid the corn,
On summer fields she grounds her breast :
The oblivious poppy o er her nest

Nods, till returning morn.

O mark those smiling tears, that swell
The opened rose! From heaven they fell,

And with the sun-beam blend.
Blest visitations from above,
Such are the tender woes of Love

Fostering the heart they bend !

When stormy Midnight howling round
Beats on our roof with clattering sound,

To me your arms you ll stretch :
Great God ! you ll say To us so kind,
O shelter from this loud bleak wind

The houseless, friendless wretch !

The tears that tremble down your cheek,
Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek

In Pity s dew divine ;
And from your heart the sighs that steal

80 JUVENILE POEMS.

Shall make your rising- bosom feel
The answering swell of mine !

How oft, my Love ! with shapings sweet
I paint the moment, we shall meet !

With eager speed I dart
I seize you in the vacant air,
And fancy, with a husband s care

I press you to my heart !

Tis said, in Summer s evening hour
Flashes the golden-coloured flower

A fair electric flame :
And so shall flash my love-charged eye
When all the heart s big ecstasy

Shoots rapid through the frame !

LINES

TO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY

LETTER.

AWAY, those cloudy looks, that labouring sigh,
The peevish offspring of a sickly hour !
Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune s power,
When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.

Yon setting sun flashes a mournful gleam
Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train :

JUVENILE POEMS. 81

To-morrow shall the many-coloured main
In brightness roll beneath his orient beam !

Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time
Flies o er his mystic lyre : in shadowy dance
The alternate groups of Joy and Grief advance
Responsive to his varying strains sublime !

Bears on its wing- each hour a load of Fate ;
The swain, who, lulled by Seine s mild murmurs, led
His weary oxen to their nightly shed,
To-day may rule a tempest-troubled State.

Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile
Survey the sanguinary despot s might,
And haply hurl the pageant from his height
Unwept to wander in some savage isle.

There shiv ring sad beneath the tempest s frown
Round his tired limbs to wrap the purple vest ;
And mixed with nails and beads, an equal jest !
Barter for food the jewels of his crown.

VOL. i.

82 JUVENILE POEMS.

RELIGIOUS MUSINGS;

A DESULTORY POEM, WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS

EVE OF 1794.

THIS is the time, when most divine to hear,

The voice of adoration rouses me,

As with a Cherub s trump : and high uphorne,

Yea, mingling with the choir, I seem to view

The vision of the heavenly multitude,

Who hymned the song of peace o er Bethlehem s

fields !
Yet thou more bright than all the an^el blaze,

CJ O

That harbingered thy birth, Thou, Man of Woes!
Despised Galilean ! For the great
Invisible (by symbols only seen)
With a peculiar and surpassing light
Shines from the visage of the oppressed good man,
When heedless of himself the scourged Saint
Mourns for the oppressor. Fair the vernal mead,
Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars;
True impress each of their creating Sire !
Yet nor high grove, nor many-coloured mead,
Nor the green Ocean with his thousand isles,
Nor the starred azure, nor the sovran sun,
E er with such majesty of portraiture
Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate,

JUVENILE POEMS. 83

As thou, meek Saviour ! at the fearful hour

When thy insulted anguish winged the prayer

Harped by Archangels, when they sing* of mercy!

Which when the Almighty heard from forth his
throne

Diviner light filled Heaven with ecstasy !

Heaven s hymnings paused : and Hell her yawn
ing mouth

Closed a brief moment.

Lovely was the death

Of Him whose life was Love ! Holy with power
He on the thought-benighted Sceptic beamed
Manifest Godhead, melting into day
What floating mists of dark idolatry
Broke and misshaped the omnipresent Sire :
And first by Fear uncharmed the drowsed Soul.
Till of its nobler nature it gan feel
Dim recollections ; and thence soared to Hope,
/ Strong to believe whate er of mystic good
The Eternal dooms for his immortal sons.
From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love
Attracted and absorbed : and centred there
God only to behold, and know, and feel,
Till by exclusive consciousness of God
All self-annihilated it shall make
God its identity : God all in all !
We and our Father one !

i

And blest are they,

84 JUVENILE POEMS.

Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven,
Their strong eye darting through the deeds of men,
Adore with steadfast unpres liming gaze
Him Nature s essence, mind, and energy !
And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend
Treading beneath their feet all visible things
As steps, that upward to their Father s throne
Lead gradual else nor glorified nor loved.
They nor contempt embosom nor revenge :
For they dare know of what may seem deform
The Supreme Fair sole operant : in whose sight
All things are pure, his strong Controlling Love
Alike from all educing perfect good.
Their s too celestial courage, inly armed
Dwarfing Earth s giant brood, what time they muse
On their great Father, great beyond compare !
And marching onwards view high o er their heads
His waving banners of Omnipotence.

Who the Creator love, created might

Dread not: within their tents no terrors walk.

For they are holy things before the Lord

Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with

Hell ;

God s altar grasping with an eager hand
Fear, the wild-visaged, pale, eye-starting wretch,
Sure-refuged hears his hot pursuing fiends
Yell at vain distance. Soon refreshed from Heaven
He calms the throb and tempest of his heart.
His countenance settles ; a soft solemn bliss

JUVENILE POEMS. 85

Swims in his eye his swimming- eye upraised :

And Faith s whole armour glitters on his limbs !

And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe,

A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds

All things of terrible seeming-: yea, unmoved

Views e en the immitigable ministers

That shower down vengeance on these latter days.

For kindling with intenser Deity

From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,

And at the renovating wells of Love

Have filled their vials with salutary wrath,

To sickly Nature more medicinal

Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours

Into the lone despoiled traveller s wounds !

Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith,
Pass the dark Passions and what thirstv Cares

j

Drink up the Spirit, and the dim regards
Self-centre. Lo they vanish ! or acquire
New names, new r features -by supernal grace
Enrobed with Light, and naturalized in Heaven.
As when a shepherd on a vernal morn
Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow

foot,

Darkling he fixes on the immediate road
His downward eye : all else of fairest kind
Hid or deformed. But lo ! the bursting Sun !
Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam
Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes
Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree ;

86 JUVENILE POEMS.

On every leaf, on every blade it hang s !
Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays,
And wide around the landscape streams with glory !

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,

Omnilic. His most holy name is Love.

Truth of subliming import ! with the which

Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,

He from his small particular orbit flies

With blest outstarting ! From Himself he flies,

Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze

Views all creation ; and he loves it all,

And blesses it, and calls it very good !

This is indeed to dwell with the most High !

Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim

Can press no nearer to the Almighty s Throne.

But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts

Unfeeling of our universal Sire,

And that in his vast family no Cain

Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow

Victorious murder a blind suicide)

Haply for this some younger Angel now

Looks down on human nature : and, behold !

A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad

Embattling interests on each other rush

With unhelmed rage !

Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole !

JUVENILE POEMS. ot

This fraternizes man, this constitutes
Our charities and bearings. But tis God
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole ;
This the worst superstition, him except
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality !
The plenitude and permanence of bliss !

Fiends of Superstition ! not that oft

The erring priest hath stained with brother s blood
Your grisly idols, not for this may wrath
Thunder against you from the Holy One !
But o er some plain that steameth to the sun,
Peopled with death ; or where more hideous Trade
Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish ;

1 will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends !

And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith,
Hiding the present God ; whose presence lost,
The moral world s cohesion, we become
An anarchy of Spirits ! Toy-bewitched,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth ! A sordid solitary thing,
Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams
Feeling himself, his own low self the whole ;
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one self! self, that no alien knows !
Self, far diffused as Fancy s wing can travel!
Self, spreading still ! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing ! This is Faith !
This the Messiah s destined victory !

88 JUVENILE POEMS.

But first offences needs must come ! Even now l
(Black Helf laughs horrible to hear the scoff!)
Thee to defend, meek Galilean ! Thee
And thy mild laws of Love unutterable,
Mistrust and enmity have burst the bands
Of social peace ; and listening treachery lurks
With pious fraud to snare a brother s life ;
And childless widows o er the groaning; land
Wall numberless ; and orphans weep for bread
Thee to defend, dear Saviour of mankind !
Thee, Lamb of God ! Thee, blameless Prince of

peace !

From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War,
Austria, and that foul Woman of the North,
The lustful murderess of her wedded lord !
And he, connatural mind ! whom (in their songs

1 January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the address to
his Majesty, on the /speech from the Throne, the Earl of
Guildford moved an amendment to the following effect :
" That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the ealiest
opportunity to conclude a peace with France," &c. This
motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who " con
sidered the war to be merely grounded on one principle
the preservation of the Christian Religion." May 30th,
1794, the Duke of Bedford moved a number of resolutions,
with a view to the establishment of a peace with France.
He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon in these
remarkable words : " The best road to Peace, my Lords, is
War ! and War carried on in the same manner in which we
are taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our
souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and
with all our strength."

JUVENILE POEMS. 89

So bards of elder time had haply feigned)
Some Fury fondled in her hate to man,
Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge
Lick his young face, and at his mouth imbreathe
Horrible sympathy ! And leagued with these
Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore !
Soul-hardened barterers of human blood !
Death s prime slave-merchants ! Scorpion-whips

of Fate !

Nor least in savagery of holy zeal,
Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate,
Whom Britain erst had blushed to call her sons !
Thee to defend the Moloch priest prefers
The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd
That Deity, accomplice Deity
In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath
Will go forth with our armies and our fleets
To scatter the red ruin on their foes !
O blasphemy ! to mingle fiendish deeds

With blessedness !

<

i
Lord of unsleeping Love, 1

From everlasting Thou ! We shall not die.
These, even these, in mercy didst thou form,
Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong
Making Truth lovely, and her future might
Magnetic o er the fixed untrembling heart.

1 Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, my God,
mine HcH- One? Wo shall not die. O Lord, thou hast
ordained them for judgment, ccc. Habakkuk.

90 JUVENILE POEMS.

In the primeval age a dateless while

The vacant Shepherd wandered with his flock,

Pitching- his tent where er the green grass waved.

But soon Imagination conjured up

A host of new desires : with busy aim,

Each for himself, Earth s eager children toiled.

So Property began, twy-streaming fount,

Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall.

Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe,

The timbrel, and arch d dome and costly feast,

With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul

To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants

Unsensualized the mind, which in the means

Learnt to forget the grossness of the end,

Best pleasured with its own activity.

And hence Disease that withers manhood s arm,

The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want,

Warriors, and Lords, and Priests all the sore ills

That vex and desolate our mortal life.

Wide-wasting ills ! yet each the immediate source

Of mightier good. Their keen necessities

o o

To ceaseless action g oading human thought
Have made Earth s reasoning animal her Lord ;
And the pale-featured Sage s trembling hand
Strong as a host of armed Deities,
Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.

/From avarice thus, from luxury and war
1 Sprang heavenly science; and from science freedom.
O er wakened realms Philosophers and Bards

JUVENILE POEMS. 91

Spread in concentric circles : they whose souls,
Conscious of their high dignities from God,
Brook not wealth s rivalry ! and they who long-
Enamoured with the charms of order hate
The unseemly disproportion : and whoe er
Turn with mild sorrow from the victor s car
And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse
On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage
Called the red lightnings from the o er-rushing cloud
And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth
Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne er
Measured firm paces to the calming sound
Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day,
When, stung to rage by pity, eloquent men
Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered

tribes

That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind,
These hushed awhile with patient eye serene
Shall watch the mad careering- of the storm ;
Then o er the wild and wavy chaos rush
And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might
Moulding confusion to such perfect forms,
As erst were wont, bright visions of the day !
To float before them, when, the summer noon,
Beneath some arch d romantic rock reclined
They felt the sea breeze lift their youthful locks ;
Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve,
Wandering with desultory feet inhaled
The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods
And many-tinted streams and setting sun

92 JUVENILE POEMS.

With all his gorgeous company of clouds

Ecstatic gazed ! then homeward as they strayed

Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused

Why there was misery in a world so fair.

Ah ! far removed from all that glads the sense,

From all that softens or ennobles Man,

The wretched Many ! Bent beneath their loads

They gape at pageant Power, nor recognise

Their cots transmuted plunder ! From the tree

Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen

Rudely disbranched ! Blest Society !

Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste,

Where oft majestic through the tainted noon

The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp

Who falls not prostrate dies ! And where by night,

Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs

The lion couches ; or hyrena dips

Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws ;

Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk,

Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth 1 yells,

His bones loud-crashing !

O ye numberless,

Whom foul oppression s ruffian gluttony
Drives from life s plenteous feast ! O thou poor

wretch
W r ho nursed in darkness and made wild by want,

1 Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general.
Some believe it is the elephant, some the hippopotamus ;
some affirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates
any large quadruped.

JUVENILE POEMS. 98

Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand
Dost lift to deeds of blood ! O pale-eyed form,
The victim of seduction, doomed to know
Polluted nights and days of blasphemy ;
Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers
Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered home
Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart !
O aged Avomen ! ye who weekly catch
The morsel tossed by law-forced charity,
And die so slowly, that none call it murder !
O loathly suppliants ! ye, that unreceived
Totter heart-broken from the closing gates
Of the full Lazar-house : or, gazing, stand
Sick with despair ! ye to glory s field
Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death,
Bleed with new wounds beneath the vulture s beak !
O thou poor widow, who in dreams dost view
Thy husband s mangled corse, and from short doze
Start st with a shriek ; or in thy half-thatched cot
Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold
Cow rst o er thy screaming baby ! Rest awhile
Children of wretchedness! More groans must rise,
More blood must stream, or ere your wronjrs be full.
\e\ is the day of retribution nio-h :

O

The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal :
And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire
The innumerable multitude of Wrongs

O

By man on man inflicted ! Rest awhile,
Children of wretchedness ! The hour is nigh ;
And lo! the great, the rich, the mighty Men,

94 JUVENILE POEMS,

The King s and the chief Captains of the World,.
With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven
Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth,
Vile and down- trodden, as the untimely fruit
Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm.
Even now the storm begins i 1 each gentle name,
Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy
Tremble far-off for lo ! the giant Frenzy
Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm
Mocketh high Heaven; burst hideous from the cell
Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge,
Creation s eyeless drudge, black ruin, sits
., Nursing the impatient earthquake.

O return !

Pure Faith ! meek Piety ! The abhorred Form
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp,
Who drank iniquity in cups of gold,
Whose names were many and all blasphemous,
Hath met the horrible judgment ! Whence that cry ?
The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked
Disherited of earth ! For she hath fallen
On whose black front was written Mystery ;
She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood ;
She that worked whoredom with the Demon Power,
And from the dark embrace all evil things
Brought forth and nurtured : mitred atheism !

O

And patient Folly who on bended knee

Gives back the steel that stabbed him; and pale Fear

1 Alluding to the French Revolution.

JUVENILE POEMS. 95

Haunted by ghastlier shapings than surround

Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight !

Return pure Faith ! return meek Piety !

The kingdoms of the world are yours : each heart

Self-governed, the vast family of Love

Raised from the common earth by common toil

Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights

As float to earth, permitted visitants !

When in some hour of solemn jubilee

The massy gates of Paradise are thrown

Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild

Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,

And odours snatched from beds of amaranth,

And they, that from the crystal river of life

Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales !

The favoured good man in his lonely walk

Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks

Strange bliss which he shall recognise in heaven.

And such delights, such strange beatitudes

Seize on my young anticipating heart

When that blest future rushes on my view !

For in his own and in his Father s might

The Saviour comes ! While as the Thousand Years

Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts !

Old Ocean claps his hands ! The mighty Dead

Rise to new life, whoe er from earliest time

With conscious zeal had urged Love s wondrous plan,

Coadjutors of God. To Milton s trump

The high groves of the renovated Earth

Unbosom their glad echoes: inly hushed,

96 JUVENILE POEMS.

Adoring 1 Newton his serener eye
Raises to heaven : and he of mortal kind
Wisest, he 1 first who marked the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.
Lo ! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage,
Him, full of years, from his loved native land
Statesmen blood stained and priests idolatrous
By dark lies maddening 1 the blind multitude
Drove with Vain hate. Calm, pitying he retired,
And mused expectant on these promised years.

O Years ! the blest pre-eminence of Saints !
Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright,
The wings that veil the adoring Seraphs eyes,
What time they bend before the Jasper Throne -
Reflect no lovelier hues ! Yet ye depart,
And all beyond is darkness ! Heights most strang-o.
Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing.
For who of woman born may paint the hour,
When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane
Making noon ghastly ! Who of woman born
May image in the workings of his thought,
How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend out
stretched 3

1 David Hartley.

2 Rev. chap. iv. v. "I and 3. And immediately I M-;IS
in the Spirit : and behold, a Throne was set in Heaven
and one sat on the Throne. And he that sat was to look
upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, &c.

3 The ilnal destruction impersonated.

JUVENILE POEMS. 97

Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans,
In feverous slumbers destined then to wake,
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name
And Angels shout, Destruction ! How his arm
The last great Spirit lifting 1 high in air
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One,
Time is no more !

Believe thou, O my soul,
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth ;
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,
Shapes of a dream ! The veiling clouds retire,
And lo ! the Throne of the redeeming God
Forth flashing unimaginable day

J

Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.

Contemplant Spirits ! ye that hover o er

With untired gaze the immeasurable fount

Ebullient with creative Deity !

And ye of plastic power, that interfused

Roll through the grosser and material mass

In organizing surge ! Holies of God !

(And what if Monads of the infinite mind)

I haply journeying my immortal course

Shall sometime join your mystic choir. Till then

I discipline my young and novice thought

In ministeries of heart-stirring sono-

(J ^j

And aye on Meditation s heaven-ward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air
Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,
VOL. i. ii

98 JUVENILE POEMS.

Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul
As the greai Sun, when he his influence
Sheds on the frost-bound waters The glad stream
Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

A VISION.

AUSPICIOUS Reverence ! Hush all meaner song,

Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured

To the Great Father, only Rightful King,

Eternal Father ! King Omnipotent !

To the Will Absolute, the One, the Good !

The I AM, the Word, the Life, the Living God !

Such symphony requires best instrument.
Seize, then, my soul ! from Freedom s trophied dome
The harp which hangeth high between the shields
Of Brutus and Leonidas ! With that
Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back
Man s free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.

For what is freedom, but the unfettered use
Of all the powers which God for use had given ?
But chiefly this, him first, him last to view

*

Through meaner powers and secondary things
Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze.
For all that meets the bodily sense I deem
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet

JUVENILE POEMS.

99

For infant minds ; and we in this low world
Placed with our backs to bright reality,
That we may learn with young unwounded ken
The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love,
Whose latence is the plenitude of all,
Thou with retracted beams, and self-eclipse
Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

But some there are who deem themselves most free
When they within this gross and visible sphere
Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent,
Proud in their meanness : and themselves they cheat
With noisy emptiness of learned phrase,
Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences,
Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all
Those blind omniscients, those almighty slaves,
Untenanting creation of its God.

But properties are God : the naked mass
(If mass there be, fantastic guess or ghost)
Acts only by its inactivity.
Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think
That as one body seems the aggregate
Of atoms numberless, each organized ;
So by a strange and dim similitude
Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds
Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs
With absolute ubiquity of thought
(His one eternal self-affirming act !)
All his involved Monads, that yet seem

100 JUVENILE POEMS.

With various province and apt agency
Each to pursue its own self-centring- end.
Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine ;
Some roll the genial juices through the oak ;
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air,
And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed,
Yoke the red lightnings to their volleying car.
Thus these pursue their never-varying course,
No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild,
With complex interests weaving human fates,
Duteous or proud, alike obedient all,
Evolve the process of eternal good.

And what if some rebellious o er dark realms
Arrogate power ? yet these train up to God,
And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day,
Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom.
As ere from Lieule-Oaive s vapoury head
The Laplander beholds the far-off sun
Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,
While yet the stern and solitary night
Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn
With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,
Guiding his course or by Niemi lake
Or Balda Zhiok, 1 or the mossy stone
Of Solfar-kapper, 2 while the snowy blast

1 Balda Zhiok ; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest moun
tain in Lapland.

2 Solfar Kapper ; capitium Solfar, hie locus omnium
quotquot veterum Lapponum superstitio sacrificiis religi-

JUVENILE POEMS. 101

Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,
Making the poor babe at its mother s back 1
Scream in its scanty cradle : he the while
Wins gentle solace as with upward eye
He marks the streamy banners of the North,
Thinking himself those happy spirits" shall join
Who there in floating robes of rosy light
Dance sportively. For Fancy is the power
That first unsensualizes the dark mind,
Giving it new delights ; and bids it swell
With wild activity ; and peopling air>
By obscure fears of beings invisible,
Emancipates it from the grosser thrall
Of the present impulse, teaching self-control,

osoque cultui dedicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus
australis situs semimilliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse
locus, quern curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse me-
mini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis,
quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat. Leemius
de Lapponibus.

1 The Lapland women carry their infants at their back
in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a
cradle. Opposite to the infant s mouth there is a hole
lor it to breathe through. Mirandum prorsus est et vix
cvedibile nisi cui vidisse contigit. Lappones hyeme iter
f acientes per vastos montes, perque horrida et invia tesqua,
eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta
sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad
destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem
autem infantem si quern habeat, ipsa mater in dorsobajulat,
in excavato ligno (Gieed k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis
utuntur : in hoc infans pannis et pellibus convolutus colli-
gatus jacet. Leemius de Lapponibus.

102 JUVENILE POEMS.

Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,

Nor yet without permitted power impressed,

I deem those legends terrible, with which

The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng :

Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan

O er slaughtered infants, or that giant bird

Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise

Is tempest, when the unutterable 1 shape

Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once

That shriek, which never murderer heard, and lived.

Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance
Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean s bed
Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave
By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguered, such
As earth ne er bred, nor air, nor the upper sea :
Where dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard name
With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath,
And lips half-opening with the dread of sound,
Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out with fear
Lest haply scaping on some treacherous blast
The fateful word let slip the elements
And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her,
Armed with Torngarsuck s 2 power, the Spirit of

Good,

<>

1 Jaibme Aibmo.

2 They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. The other
great but malignant spirit is a nameless Female ; she
dwells under the sea in a. great house, where she can detain

JUVENILE POEMS. 103

Forces to unchain the foodful progeny

Of the Ocean stream; thence thro the realm

of Souls,

Where live the Innocent,, as far from cares
As from the storms and overwhelming- waves
That tumble on the surface of the Deep,
Returns with far-heard pant, hotly pursued
By the fierce Warders of the Sea, once more,
Ere by the frost foreclosed, to repossess
His fleshly mansion, that had staid the while
In the dark tent within a cow ring group
Untenanted. Wild phantasies ! yet wise,
On the victorious goodness of high God
Teaching reliance, and medicinal hope,
Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth
With gradual steps, winning her difficult way,
Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.

If there be beings of higher class than Man,
I deem no nobler province they possess,
Than by disposal of apt circumstance
To rear up kingdoms : and the deeds they prompt,

in captivity all the animals of the ocean by her magic
power. When a dearth befalls the Greenlanders, an An-
gekok or magician must undertake a journey thither. He
passes through the kingdom of souls, over a horrible
abyss into the Palace of this phantom, and by his enchant
ments causes the captive creatures to ascend directly to
the surface of the ocean. See Crantzs History of Greenland,
vol. i. 206.

104 JUVENILE POEMS.

Distinguishing- from mortal agency,
They choose Iheir human ministers from such states
As still the Epic song half fears to name,
Repelled from all the minstrelsies that strike
The palace-roof and soothe the monarch s pride.

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words
Witnessed by answering deeds may claim our faith)
Held commune with that warrior-maid of France
Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days,
With Wisdom, mother of retired thoughts,
Her soul had dwelt ; and she was quick to mark
The good and evil thing, in human lore
Undisciplined. For lowly was her birth,
And Heaven had doomed her early years to toil
That pure from tyranny s least deed, herself
Unfeared by fellow- natures, she might wait
On the poor labouring man with kindly looks,
And minister refreshment to the tired
Way-wanderer, when along the rough hewn bench
The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft
Vacantly watched the rudely pictured board
Which on the mulberry-bough with welcome creak
Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid
Learnt more than schools could teach : Man s

shifting mind,

His vices and his sorrows ! And full oft
At tales of cruel wrong and strange distress
Had wept and shivered. To the tottering eld
Still as a daughter would she run : she placed

JUVENILE POEMS. 105

His cold limbs at the sunny door, and loved
To hear him story, in his garrulous sort,
Of his eventful years, all come and gone.

So twenty seasons past. The Virgin s form,
Active and tall, nor sloth nor luxury
Had shrunk orpaled. Her front sublime and broad,
Her flexile eye-brows wildly haired and low,
And her full eye, now bright, now unillumed,
Spake more than Woman s thought ; and all her

face

Was moulded to such features as declared
That pity there had oft and strongly worked,
And sometimes indignation. Bold her mien,
And like a haughty huntress of the woods
She moved : yet sure she was a gentle maid !
And in each motion her most innocent soul
Beamed forth so brightly, that who saw would say
Guilt was a thing impossible in her !
Nor idly would have said for she had lived
In this bad World, as in a place of tombs,
And touched not the pollutions of the dead.

Tvvas the cold season when the rustic s eye
From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields
Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints
And clouds slow varying their huge imagery ;
When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid
Had left her pallet ere one beam of day
Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone

106 JUVENILE POEMS.

Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft,
With dim inexplicable sympathies
Disquieting the heart, shapes out Man s course
To the predoomed adventure. Now the ascent
She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top
The Pilgrim-man, who long since eve had watched
The alien shine of unconcerning stars,
Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights
Seen in Neufchatel s vale ; now slopes adown
The winding sheep-track vale-ward : when, behold
In the first entrance of the level road
An unattended team ! The foremost horse
Lay with stretched limbs ; the others, yet alive
But stiff and cold, stood motionless, their manes
Hoar with the frozen night dews. Dismally
The dark-red dawn now glimmered; but its gleams
Disclosed no face of man. The maiden paused,
Then hailed who might be near. No voice replied.

From the thwart wain at length there reached her
ear

A sound so feeble that it almost seemed
Distant: and feebly, with slow effort pushed,
A miserable man crept forth : his limbs
The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire.
Faint on the shafts he rested. She, mean time,
Saw crowded close beneath the coverture
A mother and her children lifeless all,
Yet lovely ! not a lineament was marred
Death had put on so slumber-like a form !
It was a piteous sight ; and one, a babe,

JUVENILE POEMS. 107

The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips,
Lay on the woman s arm, its little hand
Stretched on her bosom.

Mutely questioning 1 ,

The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch.
He, his head feebly turning, on the group
Looked with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke
The drowsy calm that steals on worn-out anguish.
She shuddered; but, each vainer pang subdued,
Quick disentangling from the foremost horse
The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil [rived,
The stiff cramped team forced homeward. There ar-
Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,
And weeps and prays but the numb power of Death
Spreads o er his limbs ; and ere the noontide hour,
The hovering spirits of his wife and babes
Hail him immortal ! Yet amid his pangs,
With interruptions long from ghastly throes,
His voice had faltered out this simple tale.

The village, where he dwelt a husbandman,
By sudden inroad had been seized and fired
Late on the yester-evening. With his wife
And little ones he hurried his escape. [heard

They saw the neighbouring hamlets flame, they
Uproar and shrieks ! and terror-struck drove on
Through unfrequented roads, a weary way !
But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quenched
Their evening hearth-fire : for the alarm had spread.

108 JUVENILE POEMS.

The air clipped keen, the night was fanged with frost,
And they provisionless ! The weeping- wife
111 hushed her children s moans ; and still they

moaned,
Till fright and cold and hunger drank their life.

O O

They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew twas

death.

He only, lashing his o er-wearied team,
Gained a sad respite, till beside the base
Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead.
Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food,
He crept beneath the coverture, entranced,
Till wakened by the maiden. Such his tale.

Ah ! suffering to the height of what was suffere4
Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid
Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark !
And now her flushed tumultuous features shot
Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye
Of misery fancy-crazed ! and now once more
Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within
The unquiet siience of confused thought
And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand
Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul
To the high hill-top tracing back her steps,
Aside the beacon, up whose smouldered stones
The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there,
Unconscious of the driving element,
Yea, swallowed up in the ominous dream, she sate
Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber ! a dim anguish

JUVENILE POEMS. 109

Breathed from her look ! and still with pant and sob,
Inly she toil d to flee, and still subdued,
Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy,
A horror of great darkness wrapt her round,
And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones,
Calming her soul," O Thou of the Most High
Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven
Behold expectant

[The following fragments were intended to form part of
the poem when finished.]

11 Maid beloved of Heaven !
(To her the tutelary Power exclaimed)
Of Chaos the adventurous progeny
Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire,
Fierce to regain the losses of that hour
When Love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings
Over the abyss fluttered with such glad noise,
As what time after long and pestful calms,
With slimy shapes and miscreated life
Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze
Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night
A heavy unimaginable moan
Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld
Stand beauteous on confusion s charmed wave.
Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound
That leads with downward windings to the cave

1 1 JUVENILE POEMS.

Of darkness palpable, desert of Death
Sunk deep beneath Gehenna s massy roots.
There many a dateless age the beldam lurked
And trembled ; till engendered by fierce Hate,
Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose,
Shaped like a black cloud marked with streaks of

fire.

It roused the Hell-Hag: she the dew damp wiped
From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze
Retraced her steps ; but ere she reached the mouth
Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused,
Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulf.
As through the dark vaults of some mouldered tower
(Which, fearful to approach, the evening hind
Circles at distance in his homeward way)
The winds breathe hollow, deemed the plaining groan
Of prisoned spirits ; with such fearful voice
Night murmured, and the sound thro Chaos went.
Leaped at her call her hideous-fronted brood !
A dark behest they heard, and rushed on earth ;
Since that sad hour, in camps and courts adored,
Rebels from God, and tyrants o er Mankind !"

From his obscure haunt
Shrieked Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly dam,
Feverous yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow,
As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds,
Ague, the biform hag ! when early Spring
Beams on the marsh-bred vapours.

JUVENILE POEMS. 1 1 I

" Even so (the exulting Maiden said)
The sainted heralds of good tidings fell,
And thus they witnessed God ! But now the clouds
Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar
Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing
Loud songs of triumph! O ye spirits of God,
Hover around my mortal agonies !"
She spake, and instantly faint melody
Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow,
Such measures, as at calmest midnight heard
By aged hermit in his holy dream,
Foretell and solace death ; and now they rise
Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice
The white-robed 1 multitude of slaughtered saints

O

At Heaven s wide-opened portals gratulant
Receive some martyr d patriot. The harmony
Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense
Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy.

At length awakening slow, she gazed around :
And through a mist, the relique of that trance
Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appeared,
Its high, o er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs,

1 Revelations, vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the
fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they
held. And white robes were given unto every one of them,
and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little
season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren,
that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

112 JUVENILE POEMS.

Glassed on the subject ocean. A vast plain
Stretched opposite, where ever and anon
The plough-man following- sad his meagre team
Turned up fresh sculls unstartled, and the bones
Of fierce hate-breathing- combatants, who there
All mingled lay beneath the common earth,
Death s gloomy reconcilement ! O er the fields
Ste pt a fair Form, repairing- all she mig-ht,
Her temples olive-wreathed ; and where she trod,
Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb.
But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure,
And anxious pleasure beamed in her faint eye,
As she had newly left a couch of pain,
Pale convalescent ! (yet some time to rule
With power exclusive o er the willing- world,
That blest prophetic mandate then fulfilled
Peace be on Earth !) A happy while, but brief,
She seemed to wander with assiduous feet,
And healed the recent harm of chill and blight,
And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew.

But soon a deepprecursive sound moaned hollow :
Black rose the clouds, and now, (as in a dream)
Their reddening shapes, transformed to warrior-
hosts,

Coursed o er the sky, and battled in mid-air.
Nor did not the large blood-drops fall from heaven
Portentous ! while aloft were seen to float,
Like hideous features booming- on the mist,
Wan stains of ominous light ! Resigned, yet sad,

JUVENILE POEMS. 113

The fair Form bowed her olive-crowned brow,
Then o er the plain with oft reverted eye
Fled till a place of tombs she reached, and there
Within a ruined sepulchre obscure
Found hiding-place.

The delegated Maid

Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones ex
claimed ;

" Thou mild-eyed Form ! wherefore, ah ! where
fore fled ?

The power of Justice like a name all light,
Shone from thy brow ; but all they, who unblamed
Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness.
Ah ! why, uninjured and unprofited,
Should multitudes against their brethren rush ?
Why sow they guilt, still reaping misery ?
Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace ! are sweet,
As after showers the perfumed gale of eve,
That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek ;
And gay thy grassy altar piled with fruits.
But boasts the shrine of demon War one charm,
Save that with many an orgie strange and foul,
Dancing around with interwoven arms,
The maniac Suicide and giant Murder
Exult in their fierce union ! I am sad,
And know not why the simple peasants crowd
Beneath the Chieftains standard !" Thus the Maid.

To her the tutelary Spirit said :
VOL: i. i

114 JUVENILE POEMS.

"When luxury and lust s exhausted stores
No more can rouse the appetites of kings ;
When the low flattery of their reptile lords
Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear ;
When eunuchs sing-, and fools buffoonery make,
And dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain ;
Then War and all its dread vicissitudes
Pleasingly agitate their stagnant hearts ;
Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,
Insipid royalty s keen condiment !
Therefore uninjured and unprofited,
(Victims at once and executioners)
The congregated husbandmen lay waste
The vineyard and the harvest. As along
The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line,
Though hushed the winds and cloudless the high

noon,

Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease,
In sports unwieldy toss his island-bulk,
Ocean behind him billows, and before
A storm of wavos breaks foamy on the strand.
And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark,
Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless War,
And War, his strained sinews knit anew,
Still violate the unfinished works of Peace.
But yonder look ! for more demands thy view !"
He said : and straightway from the opposite Isle
A vapour sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled
From Egypt s fields that steam hot pestilence,
Travels the sky for many a trackless league,

JUVENILE POEMS. 11.5

Till o er some death-doomed land, distant in vain,
It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the plain,
Facing 1 the Isle, a brighter cloud arose,
And steered its course which way the vapour went.

The Maiden paused, musing- what this might

mean.

But long time passed not, ere that brighter cloud
Returned more bright ; along the plain it swept ;
And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged
A dazzling form, broad-bosomed, bold of eye,
And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound.
Not more majestic stood the healing God,
When from his bow the arrow sped that slew
Huge Python. Shriek d Ambition s giant throng.
And with them hissed the locust-fiends that crawled
And glittered in Corruption s slimy track.
Great was their wrath, for short they knew their

reign ;

And such commotion made they, and uproar,
As when the mad tornado bellows through
The guilty islands of the western main,
What time departing from their native shores,
Eboe, or 1 Koromantyn s plain of palms,
The infuriate spirits of the murdered make
Fierce merriment, and vengeance ask of Heaven.

The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a
passport to their native country This sentiment is thus
expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the

116 JUVENILE POEMS.

Warmed with new influence, the unwholesome plain
Sent up its foulest fogs to meet the morn :
The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in blood !

" Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven !
(To her the tutelary Spirit said)

Slave-Trade, of which the thoughts are better than the lan
guage in which they are conveyed.

"*Q GKOTOU TTvXttQ QdvCLTt, TTpoXflTTWV

Eg yivoQ GTrtv^oiq VTr
Ov Z,Evicr9f)(ry -ysvvwv
O

AXXd Kal KVK\Olffl

K atTyudrwv %
AXX 6/iu) E

t. Tvpavvt !

kiri

A ! SaXdacriov KaOop&VTet; ol(jfj,a
Ai 0p07rXayicroie VTTO TTOCTCT avtlci

ITT alav.

*Ev9a pav "Epacrat

Afj.(pi TTfjyycnv wirpivwv VTT

VTTO j3pOTO~l tTTdOoV fipOTOl, TO.

d \kyovrt.

LITERAL TRANSLATION.

Leaving the gates of darkness, Death! hasten thou
to a race yoked with misery ! Thou wilt not be received
with lacerations of cheeks, nor with funeral ululation but
with circling dances and the joy of songs. Thou art terri
ble indeed, yet thou dwellest with Liberty, stern Genius !
Borne on thy dark pinions over the swelling of Ocean, they
return to their native country. There, by the side of foun
tains beneath citron-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved
what horrors, being men, they had endured from men.

JUVENILE POEMS.

117

Soon shall the morning struggle into day,
The stormy morning into cloudless noon.
Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand
But this be thy hest omen Save thy Country ! "
Thus saying, from the answering Maid he passed,
And with him disappeared the heavenly Vision.

" Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven!
All conscious presence of the Universe !
Nature s vast ever-acting energy !
In will, in deed, impulse of All to All !
Whether thy Love with unrefracted ray
Beam on the Prophet s purged eye, or if
Diseasing realms the enthusiast, wild of thought,
Scatter new frenzies on the infected throng,
Thou both inspiring and predooming both,
Fit instruments and best, of perfect end :
Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven ! "

And first a landscape rose
More wild and waste and desolate than where
The white bear, drifting on a field of ice,
Howls to her sundered cubs with piteous rage
And savage agony.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I. POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS

OR FEELINGS CONNECTED

WITH THEM.

WHEN I have borne in memory what has tamed

Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart

When men change swords for ledgers, and desert

The student s bower for gold, some fears unnamed

I had, my country ! Am I to be blamed !

But, when I think of Thee, and what thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

But dearly must we prize thee ; we who find

In thee a bulwark of the cause of men ;

And I by my affection was beguiled.

What wonder if a poet, now and then,

Among the many movements of his mind,

Felt for thee as a Lover or a Child.

WORDSWORTH.

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR. 1

f-rt ^ **

lOV, 10V, bi to KCCKCC.

dtivo 6pSrofj,avTeia(;
T, rapdaaiav typotpioig i

av

To fieXXov ?]%ei. Kat av fj, Iv ra^ei
"Ayav y a\r]96p.avTiv oiKTtipag spetg.

JEschyl. Agam. 1225.

ARGUMENT.

THE Ode commences with an address to the Divine Pro
vidence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events
of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to
mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their
private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the
cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks
of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the
17th of November, 1796 ; having just concluded a sub
sidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France-
The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the
Departing Year, &c. as in a vision. The second Epode
prophecies, in an guish of spirit, the downfall of this
country.

I.

SPIRIT who sweepest the wild harp of Time !
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!

1 This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th
days of December, 1796: and was first published on the
last day of that year.

122 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Yet, mine^eye fixed on Heaven s unchanging 1 clime,
Long had I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and a bowed mind ;

When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the departing Year !

Starting from my silent sadness

Then with no unholy madness
Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,
I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his
flight,

ii.

Hither, from the recent tomb,

From the prison s direr gloom,
From distemper s midnight anguish ;
And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish !
Or where, his two bright torches blending,

Love illumines manhood s maze ;
Or where o er cradled infants bending
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze ;

Hither, in perplexed dance,
Ye Woes ! ye young-eyed Joys ! advance !

By Time s wild harp, and by the hand

Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep,
T bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band !

From every private bower,
And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 123

And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
O er Nature struggling- in portentous birth,

Weep and rejoice !

Still echoes the dread name that o er the earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell :

And now advance in saintly jubilee
Justice and Truth ! They too have heard thy spell,
They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty !

IP-

I marked Ambition in his war-array !

I heard the mailed Monarch s troublous cry
" Ah ! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress

stay !
Groans not her chariot on its onward way ?"

Fly, mailed Monarch, fly !
Stunned by Death s twice mortal mace,
No more on murder s lurid face
The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye !
Manes of the unnumbered slain !
Ye that gasped on Warsaw s plain !
Ye that erst at Ismail s tower,
When human ruin choked the streams,

Fell in conquest s glutted hour,
Mid women s shrieks and infants screams !
Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,
Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling !
The exterminating fiend is fled

124 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

(Foul her life, and dark her doom)
Mighty armies of the dead

Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb !
Then with prophetic song relate,
Each some tyrant-murderer s fate !

IV.

Departing Year ! twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision ! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits : thy robe inscribed with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied st thy sad hours ! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o er the ethereal multitude,
Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with

glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choired gods advancing,
The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

v.

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hushed were harp and song :
Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven,

(The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make : [spake !

The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and
" Thou in stormy blackness throning

Love and uncreated Light,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 125

By the Earth s unsolaced groaning 1 ,
Seize thy terrors, Arm of might !
By peace with proffered insult scared,
Masked hate and envying scorn !
By years of havoc yet unborn !
And hunger s bosom to the frost- winds bared \
But chief by Afric s wrongs,

Strange, horrible, and foul !
By what deep guilt belongs
To the deaf Synod, full of gifts and lies !
By wealth s insensate laugh ! by torture s howl !

Avenger, rise !

For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,
Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow ?
Speak ! from thy storm-black Heaven speak aloud !

And on the darkling foe
Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud !

O dart the flash ! O rise and deal the blow !
The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries !

Hark ! how wide Nature joins her groans below !
Rise, God of Nature ! rise."

VI.

The voice had ceased, the vision fled ;
Yet still I gasped and reeled with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs ;

My ears throb hot ; my eye-balls start ;
My brain with horrid tumult swims ;

126 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Wild is the tempest of my heart ;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of death !
No stranger agony confounds

The soldier on the war-field spread,
When all foredone with toil and wounds,

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead !
(The strife is o er, the day-light fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse !
See ! the starting wretch s head

Lies pillowed on a brother s corse !)

VII.

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,
O Albion ! O my mother Isle !
Thy valleys, fair as Eden s bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers ;
Thy grassy uplands gentle swells

Echo to the bleat of flocks ;
(Those grassy hills, those glittering dells

Proudly ramparted with rocks)
And Ocean mid his uproar wild
Speaks safety to his island-child,

Hence for many a fearless age

Has social Quiet loved thy shore ;
Nor ever proud invader s rage
Or sacked thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore.

VIII.

Abandoned of Heaven ! mad avarice thy guide,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 127

At cowardly distance, yet kindling- with pride
Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast

stood,

And joined the wild yelling- of famine and blood !
The nations curse thee ! They with eager wonderin-

Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream !

Strang-e-eyed Destruction ! who with many a

dream
Of central fires through nether seas upthundering-

Soothes her fierce solitude ; yet as she lies
By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

O Albion ! thy predestined ruins rise,
The fiend-hag- on her perilous couch doth leap,
Muttering- distempered triumph in her charmed
sleep

IX.

Away, my soul, away !
In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing
And hark ! I hear the famished brood of prey
Flap their lank pennons on the groaning- wind !

Away, my soul, away !
I unpartaking o f the evil thing,
With daily prayer and daily toil
Soliciting for food my scanty soil,
Have wailed my country with a loud Lament.
Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep sabbath of meek self-content ;
Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim
God s Image, sister of the Seraphim.

128 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

FRANCE. AN ODE.

I.

YE Clouds ! that far above me float and pause,

Whose pathless march no mortal may control!

Ye Ocean-Waves ! that, wheresoe er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws !
Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds singing,

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

Have made a solemn music of the wind !
Where, like a man beloved of God,
Through glooms, which never woodman trod,

How oft, pursuing fancies holy,
My moonlight way o er flowering weeds I wound,

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound !
O ye loud Waves ! and ye Forests high !

And O ye Clouds that far above me soared !
Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky !

Yea, every thing that is and will be free !

Bear witness for me, wheresoe er ye be,

With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest Liberty.

ii.

When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared,
And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea,

SIBY1 LINE LE/LVES. 129

Stamped her strong foot and said she would be

free,

Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared !
With what a joy my lofty gratulation

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band :
And when to whelm the disenchanted nation,

Like fiends embattled by a wizard s wand,
The Monarchs marched in evil day.
And Britain joined the dire array;

Though dear her shores and circling ocean,
Though many friendships, many youthful loves

Had swol n the patriot emotion
And flung a magic light o er all her hills and groves ;
Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance,
And shame too long delayed and vain retreat !
For ne er, Liberty ! with partial aim
I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame ;

But blessed the paeans of delivered France,
And hung my head and wept at Britain s name.

in.

" And what," I said, " though Blasphemy s loud

scream

With that sweet music of deliverance strove !
Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove
A dance more wild than e er was maniac s dream !
Ye storms, that round the dawning east assem
bled,

The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light ! "
VOL. i. K

1 30 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and

trembled, [bright ;

The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and
When France her front deep-scarr d and gory
Concealed with clustering 1 wreaths of glory i

When, insupportably advancing,
Her arm made mockery of the warrior s tramp ;

While timid looks of fury glancing,
Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal

stamp,
Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore ;

Then I reproached my fears that would not flee ;
" And soon," I said, " shall Wisdom teach her lore
In the low huts of them that toil and groan !
And, conquering by her happiness alone,

Shall France compel the nations to be free,
Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth
their own."

IV.

Forgive me, Freedom ! O forgive those dreams !

I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,

From bleak Helvetia s icy cavern sent
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams I

Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished,
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows

With bleeding wounds ; forgive me, that I che
rished
One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes !

To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 131

Where Peace her jealous home had built ;

A patriot-race to disinherit
Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear ;

And with inexpiable spirit

To- taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,

v

And patriot only in pernicious toils,
Are these thy boasts, Champion -of human kind ?

To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey
To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils

From freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray ?

v-.

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion I In mad game
They burst their manacles and wear the name

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain !
O Liberty ! with profitless endeavour
Have t pursued thee, many a weary hour ;

But thou nor swell st the victor s strain, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power.
Alike from all, howe er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)

Alike from Priestcraft s harpy minions,
And factious Blasphemy s obscener slaves,

Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the

waves !
And there I felt thee ! on that sea-cliff" s verge,

132 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze

above,

Had made one murmur with the distant surge !

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,

And shot my being through earth, sea and air,

Possessing all things with intensest love,

Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there.

February, 1797.

FEARS IN SOLITUDE.

WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798, DURING THE ALARM
OF AN INVASION.

A GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills,

A small and silent dell ! O er stiller place

No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.

The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,

Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on,

All golden with the never-bloomless furze,

Which now blooms most profusely : but the dell,

Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate

As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,

When, through its half- transparent stalks, at eve,

The level sunshine glimmers with green light.

Oh ! tis a quiet spirit-healing nook I

Which all, methinks, would love ; but chiefly he,

The humble man, who, in his youthful years,

Knew just so much of folly, as had made

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 133

His early manhood more securely wise !
Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,
While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen
The minstrelsy that solitude loves best,)
And from the sun, and from the breezy air, .
Sweet influences trembled o er his frame ;
And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,
Made up a meditative joy, and found
Religious meanings in the forms of nature !
And so, his senses gradually wrapt
In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark ;
That singest like an angel in the clouds !

My God ! it is a melancholy thing
For such a man, who would full fain preserve
His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel
For all his human brethren O my God !
It weighs upon the heart, that he must think
What uproar and what strife may now be stirring
This way or that way o er these silent hills
Invasion, and the thunder and the shout,
And all the crash of onset ; fear and rage,
And undetermined conflict even now,
Even now, perchance, and in his native isle :
Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun !
We have offended, Oh ! my countrymen !
We have offended vely grievously,
And been most tvrannous. From east to west

w

A groan of accusation pierces Heaven !

134 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The wretched plead against us ; multitudes

Countless and vehement, the sons of God,

Our brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on,

Steamed up from Cairo s swamps of pestilence

Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth

And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,

And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint

With slow perdition murders the whole man,

His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home,

All individual dignity and power

Engulfed in courts, committees, institutions,

Associations and societies,

A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting guild,

One benefit-club for mutual flattery,

We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,

Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ;

Contemptuous of all honourable rule,

Yet bartering freedom and the poor man s life

For gold, as at a market ! The sweet words

Of Christian promise, words that even yet

Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,

Are muttered o er by men, whose tones proclaim

How flat and wearisome they feel their trade :

Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.

Oh ! blasphemous ! the book of life is made

A superstitious, instrument, on which

We gabble o er the oaths we mean to break ;

For all must swear all and in every place,

College and wharf, council and justice-court ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 135

All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,
Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,
The rich, the poor, the old man and the young- ;
All, all make up one scheme of perjury,
That faith doth reel ; the very name of God
Sounds like a juggler s charm ; and, bold with joy,
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
(Portentous sight !) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, " Where is it ?"

Thankless too for peace,

(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas)
Secure from actual warfare, we have loved
To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war !
Alas ! for ages ignorant of all
Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,
Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry-snows,)
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed ; animating sports,
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of.
Spectators and not combatants ! No guess
Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,
No speculation or contingency,
However dim and vague, too vague and dim
To yield a justifying cause ; and forth,
(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,
And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)

136 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands ! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect s leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning-meal !

O

The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers

From curses, who knows scarcely words enough

To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,

Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute

And technical in victories and defeats,

And all our dainty terms for fratricide ;

Terms which we trundle smoothly o er our tongues

Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which

We join no feeling and attach no form !

As if the soldier died without a wound ;

As if the fibres of this godlike frame

Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch,

Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,

Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed ;

As though he had no wife to pine for him,

No God to judge him ! Therefore, evil days

Are coming on us, O my countrymen !

And what if all-avenging Providence,

Strong and retributive, should make us know

The meaning of our words, force us to feel

The desolation and the agony

Of our fierce doings !

/

Spare us yet awhile,

Father and God ! O ! spare us yet awhile !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 137

Oh ! let not English women drag- their flight
Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes,
Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday
Laughed at the breast ! Sons, brothers, husbands, all
Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms
Which grew up with you round the same fire-side,
And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells
Without the infidel s scorn, make yourselves pure !
Stand forth ! be men ! repel an impious foe,
Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,
Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth
With deeds of murder ; and still promising
Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,
Poison life s amities, and cheat the heart
Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes
And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand we forth ;
Render them back upon the insulted ocean,
And let them toss as idly on its waves
As the vile sea- weed, which some mountain-blast
Swept from our shores ! And oh ! may we return
Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,
Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung
So fierce a foe to frenzy !

I have told,

O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mis-timed ;
For never can true courage dwell with them,
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look

f 38 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

At their own vices. We have been too long

Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike,

Groaning- "with restless enmity, expect

All change from change of constituted power ;

As if a Government had been a robe,

On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged

Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe

Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach

A radical causation to a few

Poor drudges of chastising Providence,

Who borrow all their hues and qualities

From our own folly and rank wickedness,

Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others,

meanwhile,

Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all
Who will not fall before their images,
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country !

Such have I been deemed
But, O dear Britain ! my Mother Isle !
Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy
To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,
A husband, and a father ! who revere
All bonds of natural love, and find them all
Within the limits of thy rocky shores.
O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle !
How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and

holy
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 139

Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas,
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,
All sweet sensations, all ennobling- thoughts-,
All adoration of the God in nature,
All lovely and all honourable thing s,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel
The joy and greatness of its future being ?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrowed from my country. O divine
And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole
And most magnificent temple, in the which
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,
Loving the God that made me !

May my fears,

My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts
And menace of the vengeful enemy
Pass like the gust, that roared and died away
In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard
In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze :
The light has left the summit of the hill,
Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,
Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,
Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot !
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,
Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recalled
From bodings that have well nigh wearied me

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l.LA\ 141

1 IHi:, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

A WAR ECLOGUE. WITH AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 1

The Scene a desolated Tract in la Vendee.

FA MINI: is discovered lying on the ground ;

to her enter Fiui. and SLAUGHTER.

/ /////. SIVH.RS ! sisters ! who sent you here ?

Slau. [to Fire]. 1 will whisper it in her ear.

/ ire. No ! no ! no !
Spirits hear what spirits tell :
"1 uill hinl.i- u holiday in Hell.

No ! no ! no !

Myself, I named him once helow,
And all the souls, that damned he,
Leaped up at. once in anarchy,
( lapped their hands and danced for glee.
They no longer heeded me ;
Hut laughed to hear Hell s burning- rafters
I n willingly re-echo laughters!

No ! no ! no !

Spirits hear what spirits tell :
"I uili make a holiday in Hell !

Fam. Whisper it, sister ! so and so !
In a dark hint, soft and slow.

1 Printed at the end of this volume.

142 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Slau. Letters four do form his name
And who sent you ?

Both. * The same ! the same !

Slau. He came by stealth, and unlocked my den,
And I have drunk the blood since then
Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Both. Who bade you do it?

Slau. The same ! the same !

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo I
To him alone the praise is due.

Fam. Thanks, sister, thanks ! the men Lave

bled,

Their wives and their children faint for bread.
I stood in a swampy field of battle ;
With bones and skulls I made a rattle,
To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow
And the homeless dog but they would not go.
So off I flew : for how could I bear
To see them gorge their dainty fare ?
I heard a groan and a peevish squall,
And through the chink of a cottage-wall
Can you guess what I saw there ?

Both. Whisper it, sister ! in our ear.

Fam. A baby beat its dying mother :
I had starved the one and was starving the other !

Both. Who bade you do t ?

Fam. The same ! the same !

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose^ and cried, Halloo !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 143

To him alone the praise is due.

Fire. Sisters ! I from Ireland came !
Hedge and corn-fields all on flame ,
I triumphed o er the setting sun !
And all the while the work was done,
On as I strode with my huge strides,
I flung back my head and I held my sides,
It was so rare a piece of fun
To see the sweltered cattle run
With uncouth gallop through the night,
Scared by the red and noisy light !
By the light of his own blazing cot
Was many a naked rebel shot :
The house-stream met the flame and hissed,
While crash ! fell in the roof, I wist,
On some of those old bed-rid nurses,
That deal in discontent and curses.
Both. Who bade you do t ?
Fire. The same ! the same I

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo !
To him alone the praise is due.

All. He let us loose, and cried Halloo !
How shall we yield him honour due ?

Fam. Wisdom comes with lack of food.
I ll gnaw, I ll gnaw the multitude,
Till the cup of rage o erbrim :
They shall seize him and his brood

Slau. They shall tear him limb from limb 1
Fire. Q thankless beldames and untrue 1

J 44 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And is this all that you can do
For him, who did so much for you ?
Ninety months he, by my troth !
Hath richly catered for you both ;
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years work ? Away ! away !
I alone am faithful ! I
Cling 1 to him everlastingly.

1796.

II. LOVE POEMS.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim eftudit in aevo,

Perlegis hie lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta

Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.

Omnia paulatim consurait longior aetas,

Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.

Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor :

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,

Voxque aliud sonat

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,

Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus

Mans horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

PETRARCH.

LOVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame.
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o er the scene
Had hlended with the lights of eve ;
VOL. i. L

146 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve !

She lean d against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight ;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own.
My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve !
She loves me best, whene er I sing;
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blusn.
With downcast eyes and modest grace ;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand ;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

^

I told her how he pined : and ah !
The deep, the low, the pleading tone

SIBYLLIlvE LEAVES. 147

With which I sang another s love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting- blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace ;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face !

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain- woods,
Nor rested day nor night ;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright ;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight !

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land ;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees ;
And how she tended him in vain

148 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain ;

And that she nursed him in a cave ;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying 1 man he lay ;

His clvinp* words but when I reached

* c?

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering- voice and pausing- harp
Disturbed her soul with pity !

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my g-uileless Genevievfe ;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve ;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng-,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long !

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame ;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 149

Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half inclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace ;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

Twas partly love, and partly fear.
And partly twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm.
And told her love with virgin pride ;
And so I won my Gene vie ve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

150 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LAD1E.

A FRAGMENT.

BENEATH yon birch with silver bark,
And boughs so pendulous arid fair,
The brook falls scatter d down the rock :
And all is mossy there !

And there upon the moss she sits,
The Dark Ladie in silent pain ;
The heavy tear is in her eye,

And drops and swells again.

Three times she sends her little page
Up the castled mountain s breast,
If he might find the Knight that wears
The Griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had lingered there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears
O wherefore can he stay ?

She hears a rustling o er the brook,
She sees far off a swinging bough !
" Tis He! Tis my betrothed Knight!
Lord Falkland, it is Thou!"

She springs, she clasps him round the neck,
She feobs a thousand hopes and fears,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 151

Her kisses glowing on his cheeks
She quenches with her tears.

*****

" My friends with rude ungentle words
They scoff and bid me fly to thee !

give me shelter in thy breast!

O shield and shelter me !

" My Henry, I have given thee much,

1 gave what I can ne er recall,

I gave my heart, I gave my peace,
O Heaven ! I gave thee all."

The Knight made answer to the Maid,
While to his heart he held her hand,
" Nine castles hath my noble sire,
None statelier in the land.

" The fairest one shall be my love s,
The fairest castle of the nine !
Wait only till the stars peep out,
The fairest shall be thine :

" Wait only till the hand of eve
Hath wholly closed yon western bars,
And through the dark we two will steal
Beneath the twinkling stars !"

" The dark? the dark? No! not the dark?
The twinkling stars ? How, Henry ? How ?
O God ! twas in the eye of noon
He pledged his sacred vow!

1 52 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

" And in the eye of noon, my love,
Shall lead me from my mother s door,
Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white
Strewing flow rs before :

" But first the nodding- minstrels go
With music meet for lordly bow rs,
The children next in snow-white vests,
Strewing buds and flow rs !

l 4

And then my love and I shall pace,
My jet black hair in pearly braids,
Between our comely bachelors
And blushing bridal maids."

LEWTI,

OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT.

AT midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti ! from my mind
Depart ; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam

And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha s stream ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 153

But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tr^ssy yew
So shines my Lewti s forehead fair,
Gleaming- through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti ! from my mind
Depart ; for Lewti is not kind.
I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it passed ;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,

Till it reached the moon at last :
Then the cloud was wholly bright,
With a rich and amber light !
And so with many a hope I seek,

And with such joy I find my Lewti ;
And even so my pale w r an cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty !
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind.
If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud it floats away,

Away it goes ; away so soon ?
Alas ! it has no power to stay :
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey

Away it passes from the moon !
How mournfully it seems to fly,

Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky

And now tis whiter than before !

154 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti ! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind
And yet, thou did st not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,

Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne er beheld so thin a cloud :

Perhaps the breezes that can fly

Now below and now above,
Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud

Of Lady fair that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perished
From fruitless love too fondly cherished.
Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind
For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush ! my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever :

Like echoes to a distant thunder,
They plunge into the gentle river.

The river- swans have heard my tread,

And startle from their reedy bed.

O beauteous birds ! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune !

beauteous birds ! tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,

1 would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 155

i

I know the place where Lewti lies,
When silent night has closed her eyes :

It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nio;htmc:ale sings o er her head :

o o o

Voice of the night ! had I the power
That leafy labyrinth to thread,
And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,
As these two swans together heave

o

On the gently swelling wave.

Oh ! that she saw me in a dream,
And dreamt that I had died for care ;

All pale and wasted I would seem,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are !

I d die indeed, if I might see

Her bosom heave, and heave for me !

Soothe, gentle image ! soothe my mind !

To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1795.

THE PICTURE,

OR THE LOVER S RESOLUTION.

/

THROUGH weeds and thorns, and matted underwood
I force my way; now climb, and now descend
O er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts ; while oft unseen,

i 56 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Hurrying along- the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil
I know not, ask not whither ! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate, or guide ! The master-passion quelled,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse ;

Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul,

And of this busy human heart aweary,

Worships the spirit of unconscious life

In tree or wild-flower. Gentle lunatic !

If so he might not wholly cease to be,

He would far rather not be that, he is ;

But would be something, that he knows not of,

In winds or waters, or among the rocks !

But hence, fond wretch ! breathe not contagion

here !

No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves
Where Love dare loiter ! If in sullen mood
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 157

Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades !
And you, ye Earth- winds ! you that make at morn
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders webs !
You, O ye wing-less Airs ! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp,
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes !
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog s back.

This is my hour of triumph ! I can now
\\ ith my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes as with net-work : here will I couch my

limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world unheard, unseen,
And listening only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound ;
Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me
Was never Love s accomplice, never raised

158 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The tendril ringlets from the maiden s brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek ;
Ne er played the wanton never half disclosed
The maiden s snowy bosom, scattering 1 thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth,
Who ne er henceforth may see an aspen-grove
Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart
Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze ! thou only, if I guess aright,
Liftest the feathers of the robin s breast,
That swells its little breast, so full of song,
Singing above me, on the mountain-ash.
And thou too, desert stream ! no pool of thine,
Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve,
Did e er reflect the stately virgin s robe,
The face, the form divine, the downcast look
Contemplative ! Behold ! her open palm
Presses her cheek and brow ! her elbow rests
On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree,
That leans towards its mirror ! Who erewhile
Had from her countenance turned, or looked by

stealth,

(For fear is true love s cruel nurse), he now
With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,
Worships the waterv idol, dreaming hopes
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,
E en as that phantom- world on which he gazed,
But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah ! see,
The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 159

The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells :
And suddenly, as one that toys with time,
Scatters them on the pool ! Then all the charm
Is broken all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth, who scarcely dar st lift up thine eyes .
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return ! And lo ! he stays :
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling- back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror ; and behold
Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there,
And there the half-uprooted tree but where,
O where the virgin s snowy arm, that leaned
On its bare branch ? He turns, and she is gone !
Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze
Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth !
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou
Behold st her shadow still abiding there,
The Naiad of the mirror !

Not to thee,

O wild and desert stream ! belongs this tale :
Gloomy and dark art thou the crowded firs
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well :

160 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest

On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream !

This be my chosen haunt emancipate
From passion s dreams, a freeman, and alone,
I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.
Lo ! stealing through the canopy of firs,
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to re-unite ! And see ! they meet,
Each in the other lost and found : and see
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye !
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o erswum with lustre ! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love s brief feuds ;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall !
I pass forth into light I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest- trees, the lady of the woods,)
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts
The landscape on my sight ! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make
A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,
With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 161

The whortle-berries are bede\ved with spray,
Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass
Swings in its winnow ; all the air is calm.
The smoke from cottage chimneys, tinged with light,
Rises in columns ; from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this ?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,
And close beside its porch a sleeping child,
His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog
One arm between its fore legs, and the hand
Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers,
Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.
A curious picture, with a master s haste
Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peeled from the birchen bark ! Divinest maid !
Yon bark her canvass, and those purple berries
Her pencil ! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin ! She has been newly here ;
And lo ! yon patch of heath has been her couch
The pressure still remains ! O blessed couch !
For this mayst thou flower early, and the sun,
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells ! O Isabel !
Daughter of genius ! stateliest of our maids !
More beautiful than whom Alcasus wooed
The Lesbian woman of immortal song !
O child of genius ! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
VOL. i. M

162 SIBYLLIXE LEAVES.

And not ungentle e en to me ! My heart,
Why beats it thus ? Through yonder coppice- wood
Needs mast the pathway turn, that leads straight
way

On to her father s house. She is alone !
The night draws on such ways are hard to hit
And fit it is I should restore this sketch,
Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn
To keep the relique ? twill but idly feed
The passion that consumes me. Let me haste !
The picture in my hand which she has left ; ,
She cannot blame me that I followed her :
And I may be her guide the long wood through.

THE NIGHT-SCENE:

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

Sandoval. You loved the daughter of Don Man-
rique ?

Earl Henry. Loved ?

Sandoval. Did you not say you wooed her ?

Earl Henry. Once I loved

Her whom I dared not woo !

Sandoval. And wooed, perchance,

One whom you loved not !

Earl Henry. Oh ! I were most base,

Not loving Oropeza. True, I wooed her,
Hoping to heal a deeper wound ; but she

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 163

Met my advances with impassioned pride,

That kindled love with love. And when her sire,

Who in his dream of hope already grasped

The golden circlet in his hand, rejected

My suit witli insult, an d in memory

Of ancient feuds poured curses on my head,

Her blessings overtook and baffled them !

But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance

Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.

Sandoval. Anxiously, Henry ! reasoning anx
iously.
But Oropeza

Earl Henry. Blessings gather round her !
Within this wood there winds a secret passage,
Beneath the walls, which opens out at length
Into the gloomiest covert of the garden. ,
The night ere my departure to the army,
She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom,
And to that covert by a silent stream,
Which, with one star reflected near its marge,
Was the sole object visible around me.
No leaflet stirred ; the air was almost sultry ;
So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o er us !
No leaflet stirred ; yet pleasure hung upon
The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.
A little further on an arbour stood,
Fragrant with flowering trees I well remember
What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness
Their snow-white blossoms made thither she led
me,

164 SIBYLLIXE LEAVES.

To that sweet bower ! Then Oropeza trembled
I heard her heart beat if twere not my own.

Sandoval. A rude and scaring* note, my friend .

Earl Henry. Oh ! no !

I have small memory of aught but pleasure.
The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams
Still flowing, still were lost in those of love :
So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature,
Fleeing- from pain, sheltered herself in joy.
The stars above our heads were dim and steady,
Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us :
We were all life, each atom of our frames
A living 1 soul I vowed to die for her :
"With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
Relapses into blessedness, I vowed it :
That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,
A murmur breathed against a lady s ear.
Oh ! there is joy above the name of pleasure,
Deep self-possession, an intense repose.

Sandoval [with a sarcastic smile]. No other

than as eastern sages paint,
The God, who floats upon a lotos leaf,
Dreams for a thousand ages ; then awaking,
Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble,
Relapses into bliss.

Earl Henry. Ah ! was that bliss

Feared as an alien, and too vast for man ?
For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
Did Oropeza, starting 1 , grasp my forehead.
I caugnt her arms ; the veins were swelling on them.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 1 65

Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice ;
" Oh ! what if all betray me ? what if thou ?"
I swore, and with an inward thought that seemed
The purpose and the substance of my being,
I swore to her, that were she red with guilt,
I would exchange my unblenched state with hers.
Friend ! by that winding passage, to that bower
I now will go all objects there will teach me
Unwavering love, and singleness of heart.
Go, Sandoval ! I am prepared to meet her
Say nothing of me I myself will seek her
Nay, leave me, friend ! I cannot bear the torment
And keen inquiry of that scanning eye.

[Earl Henry retires into the wood.]
Sandoval [alone]. O Henry ! always striv st

thou to be great

By thine own act yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves : from earth to heaven

they stand,

As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honour !
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled : the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snakes trail o er the level ruins !

166 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,

WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF

HER INNOCENCE.

MYRTLE-LEAF that, ill besped,

Finest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,

Far from thy protecting spray !

When the partridge o er the sheaf

Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf!

Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, foolish thing !

Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer, on his wing,

Wooed and whispered thee to rise

Gaily from thy mother-stalk

Wert thou danced and wafted high

Soon on this unsheltered walk
Flung to fade, to rot and die

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 167

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT
THE THEATRE.

MAIDEN, that with sullen brow
Sitt st behind those virgins gay,

Like a scorched and mildewed bough,
Leafless mid the blooms of May !

Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watched with angry gaze,

Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.

Soft the glances of the youth,

Soft his speech, and soft his sigh ;

But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.

Loathing thy polluted lot,

Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence !
Seek thy weeping Mother s cot,

With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is woe :

With a musing melancholy
Inly armed, go, Maiden ! go.

168 SIB i LLINE LEAVES.

Mother sage of self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O Melancholy !
The, strongest plume in wisdom s pinion

Is the memory of past folly.

Mute the sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes,

That had skimmed the tender corn,
Or the beanfield s odorous blooms.

Soon with renovated wing
Shall she dare a loftier flight,

Upward to the day-star spring,
And embathe in heavenly light.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.

NOR cold, nor stern, my soul ! yet I detest
These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng,

Heaves the proul harlot her distended breast
In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music s genuine power, nor deign
To melt at Nature s passion-warbled plaint ;

But when the long-breathed singer s uptrilled

strain
Bursts in a squall they gape for wonderment.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 169

Hark ! the deep buzz of vanity and hate !

Scornful, yet envious, with self- torturing sneer

My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,

While the pert captain, or the primmer priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,

(Whom stretching from my nurse s arms I kissed,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,

By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay

With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,
For round their roots the fisher s boat is tied,

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne ! when midnight wind careers,

And the gust pelting on the out-house shed

Makes the cock shrilly on the rain storm crow,
To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,

Ballad of ship- ( wrecked sailor floating dead,
Whom his own true-love buried in the sands !

Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice re-measures

170 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The things of Nature utter ; birds or trees
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves,
Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

THE KEEPSAKE.

THE tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can Lfind, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope s gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not ! 1
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline

1 One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of
the Myosot is Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve
inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It
has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany
(Vergissmein niclit) and, I believe, in Denmark and Sweden.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 171

With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I

loved,)
And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked
By her full bosom s joyous restlessness,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower,
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze,
Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet image of disquiet
In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool.
There, in that bower where first she owned her love,
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her slowing 1 cheek, she sate and stretched

O O 7

The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair !
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet might ne er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)
Nor yet the enhancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring

returned,

She would resign one half of that dear name.
And own thenceforth no other name but mine !

172 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO A LADY.

WITH FALCONER S " SHIPWRECK."

AH ! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams

In arched groves, the youthful poet s choice ;

Nor while half-listening, mid delicious dreams,
To harp and song from lady s hand and voice ;

Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood
On cliff, or cataract, in Alpine dell ;

Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strewed,
Framing wild fancies to the ocean s swell ;

Our sea-bard sang this" song! which still he sings,
And sings for thee, sweet friend ! Hark, Pity,
hark !

Now mounts, now totters on the tempest s wings,
Now groans, and shivers, the replunging bark !

" Cling to the shrouds !" In vain ! The breakers
roar

Death shrieks ! With two alone of all his clan
Forlorn the poet paced the Grecian shore,

No classic roamer, but a ship-wrecked man !

Say then, what muse inspired these genial strains
And lit his spirit to so bright a flame ?

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 173

The elevating- thought of suffered pains,

Which gentle hearts shall mourn ; but chief,

*

the name

Of gratitude ! remembrances of friend,

Or absent or no more ! shades of the Past,

Which Love makes substance ! Hence to thee I

send,
O dear as long- as life and memory last !

I send with deep regards of heart and head,
Sweet maid, for friendship formed ! this work
to thee :

And thou, the while thou canst not choose but shed
A tear for Falconer, wilt remember me.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER.

WHY need I say, Louisa dear !
How glad I am to see you here,

A lovely convalescent ;
Risen from the bed of pain and fear,

And feverish heat incessant.

The sunny showers, the dappled sky
The little birds that warble high,

Their vernal loves commencing,
Will better welcome you than I

With their sweet influencing.

O

174 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Believe me, while in bed you lay,
Your danger taught us all to pray :

You made us grow devouter !
Each eye looked up and seemed to say,

How can we do without her ?

Besides, what vexed us worse, we knew,
They have no need of such as you

In the place where you were going :
This World has angels all too few,

And Heaven is overflowing !

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

IF I had but two little wings,
And were a little featheiy bird,

To you I d fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly :

I m always with you in my sleep !

The world is all one s own.
But then one wakes, and where am I ?
All, all alone.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 175

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids :
So I love to wake ere break of day :

For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while tis dark, one shuts one s lids,
And still dreams on.

HOME- SICK.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

Tis sweet to him, who all the week

Through city-crowds must push his way.

To stroll alone through fields and woods,
And hallow thus the Sabbath-day.

And sweet it is, in summer bower,

Sincere, affectionate and gay,
One s own dear children feasting round,

To celebrate one s marriage-day.

But what is all, to his delight,

Who having long been doomed to roam,
Throws off the bundle from his back,

9

Before the door of his own home ?

i
Home-sickness is a wasting pang ;

This feel I hourly more and more :
There s healing only in thy wings,

Thou Breeze that play st on Albion s shore !

176

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

ANSWER TO A CHILD S QUESTION.

Do you ask what the birds say ? The sparrow, the

dove,

The linnet and thrush say, " I love and I love !"
In the winter they re silent the wind is so strong
What it says, I don t know, but it sings a loud song
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm

weather,

And singing, and loving all come back together.
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings ; and for ever sings he
" I love my Love, and my Love loves me !"

A CHILD S EVENING PRAYER.

ERE on my bed my limbs I lay,

God grant me grace my prayers to say :

O God ! preserve my mother dear

In strength and health for many a year ;

And, O ! preserve my father too,

And may I pay him reverence due ;

And may I my best thoug-hts employ

To be my parents hope and joy ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 177

And, O ! preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other,
Our friends, our father, and our mother :
And still, Lord, to me impart
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my last sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day !

Amen,

THE VISIONARY HOPE.

SAD lot, to have no hope ! Though lowly kneeling
He fain would frame a prayer within his breast,
Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing,
That his sick body might have ease and rest ;
He strove in vain ! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,
Though Nature forced ; though like some captive

guest,

Some royal prisoner at his conqueror s feast,
An alien s restless mood but half concealino-

O

T!ie sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling :
Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain,
Each night was scattered by its own loud screams :
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

VOL. I. v

178 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast,
Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood,
Though changed in nature, wander where he

would

For Love s despair is but Hope s pining- ghost !
For this one hope he makes his hourly moan,
He wishes and can wish for this alone !
Piercedj as with light from Heaven, before its

gleams

(So the love-stricken visionary deems)
Disease would vanish, like a summer shower,
Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide

bower !

Or let it stay ! yet this one Hope should give
Such strength that he would bless his pains and

live.

THE HAPPY HUSBAND.

OFT, oft methinks, the while with Thee
I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear
And dedicated name, I hear

A promise and a mystery,

A pledge of more than passing life,
Yea, in that very name of Wife !

A pulse of love, that ne er can sleep !
A feeling that upbraids the heart
With happiness beyond desert,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 1/9

That gladness half requests to weep !
Nor bless I not the keener sense
And unalarmino; turbulence

o

Of transient joys, that ask no sting-
From jealous fears, or coy denying 1 ;
But born beneath Love s brooding wing 1 ,

And into tenderness soon dying,

Wheel out their giddy moment, then
Resign the soul to love again ;

A more precipitated vein

Of notes, that eddy in the flow

Of smoothest song, they come, they go,

And leave their sweeter understrain
Its own sweet self a love of Thee
That seems, yet cannot greater be !

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.

I.

How warm this woodland wild Recess !

Love surely hath been breathing here ;

And this sweet bed of heath, my dear !
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,

As if to have you yet more near.

ISO SIBYLLIXE LEAVES.

II.

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
On sea ward Quantock s heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills

Float here and there, like things astray,
And high o er head the sky-lark shrills.

in.

No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name ; yet why
That asking look ? that yearning sigh ?

That sense of promise every where ?
Beloved ! flew your spirit by ?

IV.

As when a mother doth explore

The rose-mark on her long lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild !

As whom I long had loved before
So deeply, had I been beguiled.

v.

You stood before me like a thought,
A dream remembered in a dream.
But when those meek eyes first did seem

To tell me, Love within you wrought
O Greta, dear domestic stream !

VI.

Has not, since then, Love s prompture deep

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 181

Has not Love s whisper evermore
Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar ?
Sole voice, when other voices sleep,
Dear under-song 1 in clamor s hour.

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE,

AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL

RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE.

GOD be with thee, gladsome Ocean !

How gladly greet I thee once more !
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion,

And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild physician,

" Those briny waves for thee are death !"

But my soul fulfilled her mission,

And lo ! I breathe untroubled breath !

Fashion s pining sons and daughters,
That seek the crowd they seem to fly,

Trembling they approach thy waters ;
And what cares Nature, if they die ?

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,

Thoughts sublime, and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand :

182

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking-,)
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth ;

Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this Earth !

O ye hopes, that stir within me,

Health comes with you from above !

God is with me, God is in me !
I cannot die, if Life be Love.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 183

III. MEDITATIVE POEMS.

IN BLANK VERSE.

YEA, he deserves to find himself deceived,
Who seeks a Heart in the unthinking Man.
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead
Nought sinks into the bosom s silent depth.
Quick sensibility of pain and pleasure
Moves the light fluids lightly ; but no soul
Warmeth the inner frame. SCHILLER.

HYMN

BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

BESIDES the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their
sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous tor
rents rush down its sides ; and within a few paces of the
Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers
with its " flowers of loveliest blue."

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course ? So long 1 he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form !
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently ! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,

184 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

An ebon mass : methiaks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge ! But when I look again,
It is thine X)wn calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity !

dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer

1 worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my

thought,

Yea, with my life and life s own secret joy :
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing there
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven !

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise
Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears,

O

Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake,
Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my Heart, awake !
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale !
strug-^liniJC with the darkness all the night,

O O C> O *

And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink :
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth s rosy star, and of the dawn

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 185

Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise !
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth ?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad !
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever ?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fuiy, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?
And who commanded (and the silence came,)
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ?

;

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge !
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts !
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living

flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God !
God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice !
Ye pine -groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds !

186 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God !

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost !
Ye wild goats sporting 1 round the eagle s nest !
Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds !
Ye signs and wonders of the element !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise !

Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky-pointing

peaks,

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure

serene

Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth !
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 187

LINES

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE,
IN THE HARTZ FOREST.

I STOOD on Brocken s 1 sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,
A surging scene, and only limited
By the blue distance. Heavily my way
Downward I dragged through fir groves evermore,
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral

forms

Speckled with sunshine ; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird s song became a hollow sound ;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook s chatter ; mid whose islet stones
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell
Leaped frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
In low and languid mood : 2 for I had found

1 The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in
North Germany.

3 When I have gazed

From some high eminence on goodly vales,
And cots and villages embowered below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.

Southey s Hymn to the Pemites.

188 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive

7 /

Their finer influence from the Life within ;

Fair cyphers else : fair, but of import vague

Or unconcerning, where the heart not finds

History or prophecy of friend, or child,

Or gentle maid, our first and early love,

Or father, or the venerable name

Of our adored country ! O thou Queen,

Thou delegated Deity of Earth,

O dear, dear England ! how my longing eye

Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds

Thy sands and high white cliffs !

*

My native Land i

Filled with the thought of thee this heart was proud,
Yea, mine eye swam with tears : that all the view
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,
Floated away, like a departing dream,
Feeble and dim ! Stranger, these impulses
Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane,
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
That man s sublimer spirit, who can feel
That God is e\ erywhere ! the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our Father, and the World our Home.

SIBYLLIXE LEAVES.

189

ON OBSERVmG A BLOSSOM OX THE
FIRST OF FEBRUARY,

1796.

/

SWEET Flower ! that peeping from thy russet stem
Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering-

Month

Hath borrowed Zephyr s voice, and gazed upon thce
With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower !
These are but flatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
E en now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish ! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth
Nipped by consumption mid untimely charms ?
Or to Bristowa s bard, 1 the w r ondrous boy !
An amaranth, which Earth scarce seemed to own,
Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to Earth ? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland s hope,
Bright flower of Hope killed in the opening b;;d ?
Farewell, sweet blossom ! better fate be thine
And mock my boding ! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I ve stolen one hour
From anxious self, Life s cruel task-master !

1 Chatterton.

190 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame, and harmonize
The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

THE EOLIAN HARP.

COMPOSED AT CLEVED01ST, SOMERSETSHIRE.

MY pensive Sara ! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o ergrown
With white -flowered jasmin, and the broad-leaved

myrtle,

(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)
Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field ! and the world so

hushed !

The stilly murmur of the distant sea
Tells us of silence.

And that simplest lute,

Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 191

Like some coy maid half yielding- to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong 1 ! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long- sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O the one life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled ;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my love ! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity ;
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute !

192 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All ?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman ! nor such thoughts

a

Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ !
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind ;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible ! save w r hen with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ;
Who w r ith his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honoured
Maid !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 193

REFLECTIONS

ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.
Sermoni propriora. HOR.

Low was our pretty Cot : our tallest rose
Peeped at the chamber- window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The sea s faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossomed ; and across the porch
Thick jasmins twined : the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.

{

It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa s citizen : methought, it calmed
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings : for he paused, and looked
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again,
And sighed, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark s note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones
I ve said to my beloved, " Such, sweet girl !
The inobtrusive song of happiness,
VOL. i. o

194 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed,

And the* heart listens !"

But the time, when first

From that low dell, steep up the stony mount
I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top,
Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep ;
Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ;
And river, now with bushy rocks o erbrowed,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ;
And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire ;
The Channel there, the Islands and white sails*,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless

Ocean

It seemed like Omnipresence ! God, methought,
Had built him there a temple : the whole World
Seemed imaged in its vast circumference,
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour ! It was a luxury, to be !

Ah ! quiet dell ! dear cot, and mount sublime .
I was constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use ?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard s eye

SIBYLLINE LEAVES 195

Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth :

And he that works me good with unmoved face,

Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,

My benefactor, not my brother man !

Yet even this, this cold beneficence

Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann st

The sluggard Pity s vision-weaving tribe !

Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,

Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies !

I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,

Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight

Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot !
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes sweet abode !
Ah ! had none greater ! And that all had such !
It might be so but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father ! Let thy kingdom come !

196 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE

OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON. WITH SOME POEMS.

Notus in fratres animi paterni.

HOR. Carm. lib. 1. 2.

A BLESSED lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt ;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisped its brief prayer. Such, my earliest Friend !
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life s upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering : now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live !

To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed
Its first domestic loves ; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 197

Some have preserved me from life s pelting ills ;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E en mid the storm ; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poisoned ! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter ; and beside one friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I ve raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of husband and of father ; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly- whispering voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours !

Yet at times

My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place : chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest friend !
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth ;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father s eye ;
And boding evil yet still hoping good,
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrowed in silence ! He who counts alone

198 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The beatings of the solitary heart,

That being knows, how 1 have loved thee ever,

Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee !

Oh ! tis to me an ever new delight,

To talk of thee and thine : or when the blast

Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash.

Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl ;

Or when as now, on some delicious eve,

We in our sweet sequestered orchard-plot

Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward ; whose old

boughs,

That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirred by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o er our heads !

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gav st thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest s swell !

These various strains,

Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my brother ! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 199

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with bees,

Such tents the Patriarchs loved ! O long unharmed

May all its aged boughs o er-canopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stona

Keeps pure from falling leaves ! Long may the

Spring,

Quietly as a sleeping infant s breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse ! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy s page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here twilight is and coolness : here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may st toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here ; Here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy Spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees I

200 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.

Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane !
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking 1 his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow puppets of a hollow age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless idols ! learning, power, and time,
(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war
Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life !
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintained
The citadel unconquered, and in joy
Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Lurked undiscovered by him ; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had traced it upward to its source,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 201

Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled
Its med cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts !
studious Poet, eloquent for truth !
Philosopher ! contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love !
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.

IN the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a
visit to the author s cottage ; and on the morning of their
arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from
walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening,
when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the
following lines in the garden-bower.

WELL, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison ! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

202 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness ! They, mean
while,

Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told ;
The roaring dell, o erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge ; that branchless ash,
Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fanned by the water-fall ! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, 1
That all at once (a most fantastic sight !)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge

Beneath the wide wide Heaven and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow ! Yes ! they wander on
In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad,

1 Of long lank weeds.] The asplenium scolopendrium,
called in some countries the Adder s Tongue, in others the
Hart s Tongue : but Withering gives the Adder s Tongue
as the trivial name of the ophioglossum only.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 203

My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined
And hungered after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity ! Ah ! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun !
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves !
And kindle, thou blue ocean ! So my Friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there ! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watched
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine ! And that walnut-tree
Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches i^leam a lighter hue

204 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower ! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne er deserts the wise and pure ;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes
Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it ! deeming, its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had crossed the mighty orb s dilated glory,
While thou stood st gazing ; or when all was still,
1 Flew creeking o er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to \vhom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

1 Flew creeking.~\ Some months after I had written this
line, it gave me pleasure to find that Bartram had ob
served the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane.
" When these Birds move their wings in flight, their
strokes are slow, moderate and regular ; and even when at
a considerable distance or high above us, we plainly hear
the quill-feathers ; their shafts and webs upon one another
creek as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous
sea.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

205

TO A FRIEND

WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING
NO MORE POETRY.

DEAR Charles ! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount

Hight Castalie : and (sureties of thy faith)

That Pity and Simplicity stood by,

And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce

The world s low cares and lying vanities,

Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And washed and sanctified to Poesy.

Yes thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son :

And with those recreant unbaptized heels

Thou rt flying from thy bounden minist ries

So sore it seems and burthensome a task

To weave unwithering flowers ! But take thou need :

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy,

And I have arrows 1 mystically dipt,

Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead ?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth

" Without the meed of one melodious tear ?"

Thy Burns, and Nature s own beloved bard,

Who to the " Illustrious 2 of his native Lana

1 Find. Olymp. ii. 1. 150.

2 Verbatim from Burns dedication of his Poem to the
Nobility and Gentry of the Caledonian Hunt.

05 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

So properly did look for patronage."
Ghost of Maecenas ! hide thy blushing face !
They snatched him from the sickle and the plough
To gauge ale-firkins.

Oh ! for shame return !

On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight blast
Make solemn music : pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled,
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet s tomb.
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,
Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers
Of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit,
These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine,
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.

179G.

TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION

OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN

INDIVIDUAL MIND.

FRIEND of the wise ! and teacher of the good !
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)

SIBYLLIXE LEAVES. 207

Of the foundations and the building up

Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell

What may be told, to the understanding- mind

Revealable ; and what within the mind

By vital breathings secret as the soul

Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart

Thoughts all too deep for words !

Theme hard as high

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears,
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth)
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner power ; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul re
ceived

The light reflected, as a light bestowed
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland. lakes and famous hills !
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising ; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way !

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst

208 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Of Heaven s immediate thunder, when no cloud

Is visible, or shadow on the main.

For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,

Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,

Amid a mighty nation jubilant,

When from the general heart of human kind

Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity !

Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,

So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure
From the dread watch-tower of man s absolute self,
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision ! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy ! An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted .

O great Bard !

Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence ! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 209

Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,

Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes !

Ah ! as I listened with a heart forlorn,

The pulses of my being beat anew :

And even as life returns upon the drowned,

Life s joy rekindling 1 roused a throng of pains

Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe

Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ;

And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of

hope ;

And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave !

That way no more ! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer in herald s guise,
Singing of glory, and futurity,
To wander back on such unhealthful road,
Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! And ill
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strewed before thy advancing !

Nor do thou,

Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
VOL. i. p

210 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

By pity or grief, already felt too long- !
Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
The tumult rose and ceased : for peace is nigh
Where wisdom s voice has found a listening heart.
Amid the howl of more than wintry storms,
The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours
Already on the wing.

Eve following eve,

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hailed
And more desired, more precious for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam, 1 still darting off
Into the darkness ; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

And when Friend ! my comforter and guide !
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength !-
Thy long sustained Song finally closed,

1 " A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary in
tervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and
little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in
it: and every now and then light detachments of this white
cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel s side, each with
its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out
of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness." The
Friend, p. 220.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 211

And thy deep voice had ceased yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of beloved faces
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?)
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

THE NIGHTINGALE;

A CONVERSATION POEM. APRIL, 1798.

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge !
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring : it flows silently,
O er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night ! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song,
" Most musical, most melancholy" bird! l

1 " Most musical, most melancholy."] This passage in
Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere

212 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

A melancholy bird ! Oh ! idle thought !

In nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man whose heart was

pierced

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,
(And so, poor wretch ! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit ;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful ! so his fame
Should share in Nature s immortality,
A venerable thing ! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature ! But twill not be so ;
And youths an 1 maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

description. It is spoken in the character of the melancholy
man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The author
makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of
having alluded with levity, to a line in Milton.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 213

Full of. meek sympathy must heave their sighs
O er Philomela s pity^pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister ! we have learnt
A- different lore : we may not thus profane
Nature s sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance ! Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that- an. April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music!

And I, know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,.
Which the great lord inhabits not ; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales ; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other s song,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all
Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moon-lit bushes,

- 14 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright

and full,

Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle Maid,
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate
To something more than Nature in the grove)
Glides through the pathways ; she knows all their

notes,

That gentle Maid ! and oft a moment s space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence ; till the moon
Emerging", hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if some sudden gale had swept at once
A hundred airy harps] And she hath watched
Many a nightingale perched giddily
On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler ! till to-morrow eve,
And you, my friends ! farewell, a short farewell !
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 215

And now for our dear homes. That strain again!

Full fain it would delay me ! My dear babe,

Who, capable of no articulate sound,

Mars all thing s with his imitative lisp,

How he would place his hand beside his ear,

His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen ! And I deem it wise

To make him Nature s play-mate. He knows well

The evening-star ; and once, when he awoke

In most distressful mood (some inward pain

Had made up that strange thing, an infant s

dream. )

I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,
And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears,
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam ! Well I
It is a father s tale : But if that Heaven
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy. Once more, farewell,
Sweet Nightingale ! Once more, my friends ! fare
well.

216 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

FROST AT MIDNIGHT.

THE frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet s cry
Came loud and hark, again ! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings : save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
*Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings on of life,
Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low burnt fire, and quivers not ;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But ! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 217

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering- stranger ! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man s only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come !
So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams !
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor s face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book :
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger s face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike !

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought !
My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore
And in far other scenes ! For I was reared
In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

218 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eve-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

219

THE THREE GRAVES.

A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON S TALE.

[THE Author has published the following humble fragment,
encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than
one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was
intended to be dramatic; that is suited to the narrator; and
the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It
is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but
of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify
the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition
not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some
doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it
is in no way connected with the Author s judgment con
cerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively
psychological. The story which must be supposed to have
been narrated in the first and second parts is as follows.

Edward, a young fanner, meets at the house of Ellen her
bosom-friend Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which
ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by
the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his
hopes and intentions to Mary s mother, a widow-woman
bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health
the possession of a competent property, and from having
had no other children but Mary and another daughter (the
father died in their infancy), retaining for the greater part,
her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance ; but
a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer
which she at once returned to Edward s application was
remarkable " Well, Edward ! you are a handsome young
fellow, and you shall have my daughter." From this time
all their wooing passed under the mother s eye ; and, m
fine, she became herself enamoured of her future son-in-law,
and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny,

220 SIBYLjaXE LEAVES.

to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The
outlines of the Tale are positive facts, and of no very dis
tant date, though the author has. purposely altered the
names and the scene of action, as well as invented the
characters of tlie parties and the detail of the incidents.)
Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange de
tractions frpm her daughter s good qualities, yet in the in
nocence of his own, heart still mistaking her increasing
fondness for motherly affection ; she at length, overcome by
her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary s temper
and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion " O
Edward ! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you she has
not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love
. you ! Marry me, Edward ! and I will this very day settle
all my property on you." The Lover s eyes were now opened ;
and thus takea by surprise, whether from the effect of the
horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his
nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the
sense of guilt of the proposal in the feeling of its strange
ness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a
fit of laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the
woman fell on her knees, and in a loud voice that ap
proached to a scream, she prayed for a curse both on him
and on her own child. Mary happened to be in the room di
rectly above them, heard Edward s laugh, and her mother s
blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the
fall, ran up stairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her
off to Ellen s home ; and after some fruitless attempts on
her part toward a reconciliation with her mother, she was
married to him. And here the third part of the Tale
begins.

I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to
tragic, much less to mpnstrous events (though at the time
that I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve
years ago, I was less averse to such subjects than at pre
sent), but from finding in it a striking proof of the possible
effect on the imagination, from an Idea violently and sud-

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 221

denly impressed on it. I had been reading Bryan Ed-
wards s account of the effect of the Oby witchcraft on the
Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne s deeply interest
ing anecdotes of similar workings on the imagination of
the Copper Indians (those of my readers who have it in
their power will be well repaid for the trouble of referring
to those works for the passages alluded to) and I conceived
the design of showing that instances of this kind are not
peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of illustrating
the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and
the progress and symptoms of the morbid action on the
fancy from the beginning.

The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old Sexton,
in a country church-yard, to a traveller whose curiosity
had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, close
by each other, to two only of which there were grave
stones. On the first of these was the name, and dates, as
usual : on the second, no name, but only a date, and the
words, " The Mercy of God is infinite."]

1818.

THE grapes upon the Vicar s wall

Were ripe as ripe could be ;
And yellow leaves in sun and wind

Were falling: from the tree.

o

On the hedge-elms in the narrow lane
Still swung the spikes of corn :

Dear Lord ! it seems but yesterday
Young Edward s marriage-morn.

Up through that wood behind the church,
There leads from Edward s door

A mossy track, all over bougbed,
For half a mile or more.

2 22 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And from their house-door by that track
The bride and bridegroom went ;

Sweet Mary, though she was not gay,
Seemed cheerful and content.

But when they to the church-yard came,

I ve heard poor Mary say,
As soon as she stepped into the sun,

Her heart it died away.

*

And when the Vicar joined their hands,
Her limbs did creep and freeze ;

But when they prayed, she thought she saw
Her mother on her knees.

And o er the church-path they returned -

I saw poor Mary s back,
Just as she stepped beneath the boughs

Into the mossy track.

Her feet upon the mossy track
The married maiden set :

That moment I have heard her say-
She wished she could forget.

The shade o er-flushed her limbs with heat

Then came a chill like death:
And when the merry bells rang out,

They seemed to stop her breath.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 223

Beneath the foulest mother s curse

No child could ever thrive :
A mother is a mother still,

The holiest thing alive.

So five months passed : the mother still

Would never heal the strife ;
But Edward was a loving man,

And Mary a fond wife.

i

" My sister may not visit us,
My mother says her nay :

Edward ! you are all to me,

1 wish for your sake I could be

More lifesome and more gay.

" I m dull and sad ! indeed, indeed

I know I have no reason !
Perhaps I am not well in health,

And tis a gloomy season."

Tu*as a drizzly time no ice, no snow !

And on the few fine days
She stirred not out, lest she might meet

Her mother in the ways.

But Ellen, spite of miry ways
And weather dark and drear v,

Trudged every day to Edward s house,
And made them all more cheery.

224 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Oh ! Ellen was a faithful friend,

More dear than any sister !
As cheerful too as singing- lark ;
And she ne er left them till twas dark,

And then they always missed. her.

And now Ash- Wednesday came that day

But few to church repair :
For on that day you know we read

The Commination prayer.

Our late old Vicar, a kind man,

Once, Sir, he said to me,
He wished that service was clean out

Of our good liturgy.

The mother walked into the church

To Ellen s seat she went :
Though Ellen always kept her church

All church-days during Lent.

And gentle Ellen welcomed her
With courteous looks and mild :

Thought she " what if her heart should melt,
And all be reconciled !"

The day was scarcely like a day
The clouds were black outright :

And many a night, with half a moon,
I ve seen the church more li^-ht.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 225

The wind was Avild ; against the glass

The rain did beat and bicker ;
, The church-tower swing-ing- over head,
You scarce could hear the Vicar !

And then and there the mother knelt,

And audibly she cried
Oh ! may a clinging curse consume
This woman by my side !

O hear me, hear me, Lord in Heaven,
Although you take my life

curse this woman, at whose house
Young Edward woo d his wife.

By night and day, in bed and bower,

let her cursed be !"
So having prayed, steady and slow,

She rose up from her knee,
And left the church, nor e er again

The church-door entered she.

1 saw poor Ellen kneeling still,

So pale, I guessed not why :
When she stood up, there plainly was
A trouble in her eye.

And when the prayers were done, we all
Came round and asked her why :

Giddy she seemed, and sure, there was
A trouble in her eye.

VOL. I. Q

226 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

But ere she from the church-door stepped
She smiled and told us why :

" It was , wicked woman s curse,"
Quoth she, " and what care I ?"

She smiled, and smiled, and passed it off
Ere from the door she stept

But all agree it would have been
Much better had she wept.

And if her heart was not at ease,
This was her constant cry

" It was a wicked woman s curse
God s good, and what care I ? 7

There was a hurry in her looks,
Her struggles she redoubled :

" It was a wicked woman s curse,
And why should I be troubled ?"

These tears will come I dandled her
When twas the merest fairy

Good creature ! and she hid it all :
She told it not to Mary.

But Mary heard the tale : her arms
Round Ellen s neck she threw ;

" Ellen, Ellen, she cursed me,
And now she hath cursed vou I"

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 227

I saw young Edward by himself

Stalk fast adown the lee,
He snatched a- stick from every fence,

A twig 1 from every tree.

He snapped them still with hand or knee,

And then away they flew !
As if with his uneasy limbs

He knew not what to do !

You see, good sir ! that single hill ?

His farm lies underneath :
He heard it there, he heard it all,

And only gnashed his teeth.

Now Ellen was a darling love

In all his joys and cares :
And Ellen s name and Mary s name
Fast-linked they both together came,

Whene er he said his prayers.

And in the moment of his prayers

He loved them both alike :
Yea, both sweet names with one sweet joy

Upon his heart did strike !

He reach d his home, and by his looks

They saw his inward strife :
And they clung round him with their arms,

Both Ellen and his wife.

228 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And Mary could not check her tears,
So on his breast she bowed ;

Then frenzy melted into grief,
And Edward wept aloud.

Dear Ellen did not weep at all,
But closelier did she cling,

And turned her face and looked as if
She saw some frightful thing.

THE THREE GRAVES.

PART IV.

To see a man tread over graves

I hold it no good mark ;
Tis wicked in the sun and moon,

And bad luck in the dark !

You see that grave ? The Lord he gives,

The Lord he takes away ;
O Sir ! the child of my old age

Lies there as cold as clay.

Except that grave, you scarce see one
That was not dug by me ; v

I d rather dance upon em all
Than tread upon these three !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 229

" Ay, Sexton ! tis a touching- tale."

You, Sir ! are but a lad ;
This month I m in my seventieth year,

And still it makes me sad.

And Mary s sister told it me,

For three good hours and more ;
Though I had heard it, in the main,

From Edward s self before.

Well ! it passed off ! the gentle Ellen

Did well nigh dote on Mary ;
And she went oftener than before,
And Mary loved her more and more :

She managed all the dairy.

To market she on market-days,

To church on Sundays came ;
All seemed the same : all seemed so, Sir !

But all was riot the same !

Had Ellen lost her mirth ? Oh ! no !

But she was seldom cheerful ;
And Edward looked as if he thought

That Ellen s mirth was fearful.

When by herself, she to herself

Must sing some merry rhyme ;
She could not now be glad for hours,

Yet silent all the time.

2 )0 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And when she soothed her friend, through all

Her soothing words twas plain
She had asore grief of her own,

A haunting in her brain.

o

And oft she said, I m not grown thin
And then her wrist she spanned ;

And once when Mary was down-cast,
She took her by the hand,

And gazed upon her, and at first
She gently pressed her hand ;

Then harder, till her grasp at length

Did gripe like a convulsion !
Alas ! said she, we ne er can be

Made happy by compulsion !

And once her both arms suddenly
Round Mary s neck she flung,

And her heart panted, and she felt
The words upon her tongue.

She felt them coming, but no power
Had she the words to smother ;

And with a kind of shriek she cried,
" Oh Christ ! you re like your mother !

So gentle Ellen now no more

Could make this sad house cheery ;

And Mary s melancholy ways
Drove Edward wild and weary.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 231

Lingering he raised his latch at eve,

Though tired in heart and limb :
He loved no other place, and yet

Home was no home to him.

One evening he took up a book,

And nothing in it read ;
Then flung it down, and groaning cried,

" Oh ! Heaven ! that I were dead."

Maiy looked up into his face,

And nothing to him said ;
She tried to smile, and on his arm

Mournfully leaned her head.

And ne burst into tears, and fell

Upon his knees in prayer :
" Her heart is broke ! O God! my grief,

It is too great to bear!"

Twas such a foggy time as makes

Old sextons, Sir! like me,
Rest on their spades to cough ; the spring

Was late uncommonly.

And then the hot days, all at once,

They came, we knew not how :
You looked about for shade, when scarce

A leaf was on a bough.

232

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

It happened then ( twas in the bower

A furlong- up the wood :
Perhaps you know the place, and yet

I scarce know how you should, )

No path leads thither, tis not nigh

To any pasture-plot ;
But clustered near the chattering brook,

Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape

As of an arbour took,
A close, round arbour ; and it stands

Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still

With scarlet berries hung,
Were these three friends, one Sunday morn

Just as the first bell rung.

Tis sweet to hear a brook, tis sweet

To hear the Sabbath-bell,
Tis sweet to hear them both at once,

Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head

Upon a mossy heap,
With shut-up senses, Edward lay :
That brook e en on a working day

Might chatter one to sleep.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 233

And he had passed a restless night,

And was not well in health ;
The women sat down by his side,

And talked as twere by stealth.

11 The sun peeps through the close thick leaves,

See, dearest Ellen ! see !
Tis in the leaves, a little sun,

No bigger than your ee ;

" A tiny sun, and it has got

A perfect glory too ;
Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,
Make up a glory, gay and bright,

Round that small orb, so blue."

And then they argued of those rays,

What colour they might be ;
Says this, " they re mostly green ;" says that,

" They re amber-like to me."

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts

Were troubling Edward s rest ;
But soon they heard his hard quick pants,

And the thumping in his breast.

" A mother too !" these self-same words

Did Edward mutter plain ;
His face was drawn back on itself,

With horror and huge pain.

234 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Both groaned at once, for both knew well
What thoughts were in his mind ;

When he waked up, and stared like one
That hath been just struck blind.

He sat upright ; and ere the dream

Had had time to depart,
" O God, forgive me! (he exclaimed)

I have torn out her heart."

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst

Into ungentle laughter ;
And Mary shivered, where she sat,

And never she smiled after.

Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To
morrow ! and To-morrow ! and To-morrow !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 235

ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

DEJECTION: AN ODE.

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms ;
And I tear, I fear, my Master dear !
We shall have a deadly storm.

BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE.
I.

WELL ! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Eolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo ! the New-moon winter-bright !
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming on of rain and squally blast.
And oh ! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast !

236 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they
And sent my soul abroad, [awed,

Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and
live !

ii.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear

Lady ! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo d,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green :
And still I gaze and with how blank an eye !
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars ;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen :
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
In its own clou Hess, starless lake of blue ;

1 see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel how beautiful they are !

in.

My genial spirits fail ;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 237

It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should o-aze for ever

o o

On that green light that lingers in the west :

I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV.

O Lady ! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live :

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever- anxious crowd,

Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the Earth
And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

v.

O pure of heart ! thou need st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be !
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This .beautiful and beauty-making power.

Joy, virtuous Lady ! Joy that ne er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life s effluence, cloud at once and
shower,

238 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding 1 Nature to us gives in dower,

A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud

We in ourselves rejoice !
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,

All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.

VI.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness :

For hope grew round me, like the twining 1 vine,

And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth :

Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh! each visitation

Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.

For not to th nk of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can ;

And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man
This was my sole resource, my only plan :

Till that which suits a part infects the whole,

And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 239

V 7 II.

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality s dark dream !
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth ! Thou Wind, that ravest

without,

Bare craig, or mountam-tairn, 1 or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches home,

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist ! who in this month of showers,
Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak st Devils yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.

Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds !
Thou mighty Poet, e en to frenzy bold !
What tell st thou now about ?
Tis of the rushing of a host in rout,
With groans cf trampled men, with smarting

wounds

At once they groan with pain, and shudder with
the cold !

Tairn is a small lake, generally if not always applied
to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the
feeders of those in the valleys. This address to the Storm-
wind will not appear extravagant to those who have heard
it at night, and in a mountainous country.

240 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

But hush ! there is a pause of deepest silence

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings all is

over

It tells another tale,, with sounds less deep and
A tale of less affright, [loud !

And tempered with delight,
As Otway s self had framed the tender lay,
Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, hut she hath lost her way :
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her
mother hear.

VIII.

Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep :
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep !
Visit her, gentle Sleep ! with wings of healing,

And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,

Silent as though they watched the sleeping
With light heart may she rise, [Earth!

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice ;
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul !

O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 241

ODE TO GEORGIANA,

DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-
FOURTH STANZA IN HER " PASSAGE
OVER MOUNT GOTHARD."

* And hail the chapel ! hail the platform wild
Where Tell directed the avensrinsr dart,

O O

With well strung arm, that first preserved his child,
Then aimed the arrow at the tyrant s heart."

S PLENDOUR S fondly fostered child !
And did you hail the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learn d you that heroic measure ?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran,
From all that teaches brotherhood to Man
Far, far removed ! from want, from hope, from fear
Enchanting music lulled your infant ear,
Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart :

Emblasonments and old ancestral crests,
With many a bright obtrusive form of art/

Detained your eye from nature : stately vests,
That veiling strove to deck your charms divine,
Rich viands and the pleasurable wine,

VOL. i. R

242 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Were yours unearned by toil ; nor could you see
The unenjoying toiler s misery.
And yet, free Nature s uncorrupted child,
You hailed the chapel and the platform wild.
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learn d you that heroic measure ?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame,

All living faculties of bliss ;
And Genius to your cradle came,
His forehead wreathed with lambent flame,
And bending 1 low, with godlike kiss
Breath d in a more celestial life ;
But boasts not many a fair compeer,

A heart as sensitive to joy and fear ?
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,
Some few, to nobler being wrought,
Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought.
Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurelled war and plumy state ;
Or in verse and music dress
Tales of rustic happiness
Pernicious tales ! insidious strains !
That steel the rich man s breast,
And mock the lot unblest,
The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be
The doom of ignorance arid penury !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

But you, free Nature s uncorrupted child,
You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learn d you that heroic measure ?

You were a mother ! That most holy name,

Which Heaven and Nature bless,
I may not vilely prostitute to those

Whose infants owe them less
Than the poor caterpillar owes

Its gaudy parent fly.
You were a mother ! at your bosom fed
The babes that loved you. You, with laughing-

eye,

Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,
Which you yourself created. Oh ! delight !
A second time to be a mother,

Without the mother s bitter groans :
Another thought, and yet another,

By touch, or taste, by looks or tones
O er the growing sense to roll,
The mother of your infant s soul !
The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides

His chariot-planet round the goal of day,
All trembling gazes on the eye of God,

A moment turned his awful face away ;
And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet
New influences in your being rose,

244 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Blest intuitions and communions fleet

With living Nature, in her joys and woes !
Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see
The snrine of social Liberty !
O beautiful ! O Nature s child !
Twas thence you hailed the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Thence learn d you that heroic measure.

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY.

TRANQUILLITY ! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame !
Thou ne er wilt leave my riper age
To low intrigue, or factious rage ;
For oh ! dear child of thoughtful Truth,
To thee I gave my early youth,
And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore,
Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its

roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,
On him but seldom, Power divine
Thy spirit rests ! Satiety
And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope
And dire remembrance interlope,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 245

To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind :

The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead
At morning through the accustomed mead ;
And in the sultry summer s heat
Will build me up a mossy seat ;
And when the gust of Autumn crowds,
And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,
Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune,
Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,
To thee I dedicate the whole !
And while within myself I trace
The greatness of some future race,
Aloof with hermit-eye I scan
The present works of present man
A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,
Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile !

246 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND,

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE
AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796.

A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep,

But a green mountain variously up-piled,
Where o er the jutting- rocks soft mosses creep,
Or coloured lichens with slow cosing 1 weep ;

Where cypress and the darker yew start wild ;
And mid the summer torrent s gentle dash
Dance brightened the red clusters of the ash ;

Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds

beguiled,
Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep ;

Till haply startled by some fleecy dam,
That rustling- on the bushy cliff above,
With melancholy bleat of anxious love,

Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb :

Such a green mountain twere most sweet to climb,
E en while the bosom ached with loneliness
How more than sweet, if some dear friend should
bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime
Now lead, now follow : the glad landscape round
Wide and more wide, increasing 1 without bound !

O then twere loveliest sympathy, to mark

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 247

The berries of the half-uprooted ash

Dripping and bright; and list the torrent s dash,

Beneath the c} T press, or the yew more dark,
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock ;
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart ; arm linked in friendly arm,
Save if the one, his muse s witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag ;

Till high o er head his beckoning friend appears
And from the forehead of the topmost crag

Shouts eagerly : for haply there uprears
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,

Which latest shall detain the enamoured sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

Tinged yellow with the rich departing light ;

And haply, basoned in some unsunned cleft,
A beauteous spring, the rock s collected tears,
Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the
gale !

Together thus, the world s vain turmoil left,
Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,

And bending o er the clear delicious fount,
Ah ! dearest youth ! it were a lot divine
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,
While west- winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed ;

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the

mount,

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss
Gives this the husband s, that the brother s kiss !

248 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,
The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace ;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

To glad and fertilize the subject plains ;
That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains
Low murmuring, lay ; and starting from the rocks
Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks
Want s barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
And bigotry s mad fire-invoking rage !
O meek retiring spirit ! we will climb,
Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime ;

And from the stirring world up-lifted high,
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
To quiet musings shall attune the mind,

And oft the melancholy theme supply)

There, while the prospect through the gazing eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,
We ll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,
Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same,

As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole:
Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth

We ll discipline the heart to pure delight,
Rekindling sober joy s domestic flame.
They whom I love shall love thee, honoured youth !

Now may Heaven realize this vision bright !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 249

LINES TO W. L.

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL s MUSIC.

WHILE my young 1 cheek retains its healthful hues,

And I have nlany friends who hold me dear ;

L ! methinks, I would not often hear

Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose
All memory of the wrongs and sore distress,

For which my miserable brethren weep !

But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
My daily bread in tears and bitterness ;
And if at death s dread moment I should lie

With no beloved face at my bed-side,
To fix the last glance of my closing eye, [guide,

Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-
W T ould make me pass the cup of anguish by,

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died !

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT

AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear !

To plundered want s half-sheltered hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear

250 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Moan haply in a dying mother s ear :
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves

strewed,
Pace round some widow s grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughtered, where o er his uncoffined limbs
The flocking flesh-birds screamed ! Then, while
thy heart

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal !

O abject ! if, to sickly dreams resigned,
All effortless thou leave life s common-weal

A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

DEAR native brook ! wild streamlet of the West !

How many various-fated years have past,

What happy, and what mournful hours, since -

last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 251

Gleamed through thy bright transparence ! On
my way,

Visions of childhood ! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood s cares, yet waking fondest sighs

Ah ! that once more I were a careless child !

SONNET.

COMPOSED OX A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR

HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE

BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796.

OFT o er my brain does that strange fancy roll

Which makes the present (while the flash doth
last)

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past
Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep ; and some have said

We lived, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby ! when I reach my door,
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,
(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)
I think that I should struggle to believe

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere
Sentenced for some more Venial crime to grieve ;
Did st scream, then spring to meet Heaven s quick
reprieve,

While we wept idly o er thy little bier !

"H.v TTOV ripuiv t} -^v^r] irplv tv Tyds r<p
i. Plat, in Phadon.

252 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

SONNET.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE
NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

CHARLES ! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scanned that face of feeble infancy :

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my child might be !

But when I saw it on its mother s arm,
And hanging at her bosom (she the while
Bent o er its features with a tearful smile)

Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm

impressed a father s kiss : and all beguiled
Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seemed to see an angel-form appear

Twas even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the mother s sake the child was dear,

And dearer was the mother for the child.

THE VIRGIN S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM 4 PRINT OF THE VIRGIN, IN A ROMAN
CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

DORMI, Jesu ! Mater ridet
Quae tarn dulcem somnum videt,

Dormi, Jesu ! blandule !
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat, , ~
Blande, veni, somnule.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 253

ENGLISH.

Sleep, sweet babe ! my cares beguiling :
Mother sits beside thee smiling ;

Sleep, my darling, tenderly !
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth :

Come, soft slumber, balmily !

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

ITS balmy lips the infant blest
Relaxing from its mother s breast,
How sweet it heaves the happy sigh
Of innocent satiety !

And such my infant s latest sigh !
O tell, rude stone ! the passer by,
That here the pretty babe doth lie,
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

MELANCHOLY.
A FRAGMENT.

STRETCH D on a mouldered Abbey s broadest wall,
Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep

Her folded arms wrapping her tattered pall,
Had melancholv mus d herself to sleep.

254 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The fern was press d beneath her hair,
The dark green adder s tongue was there ;
And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,
The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flushed : her eager look
Beamed eloquent in slumber ! Inly wrought,
Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,
And her bent forehead worked with troubled

thought.
Strange was the dream

TELL S BIRTH-PLACE.

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.
I.

MARK this holy chapel well !
The birth-place, this, of William Tell.
Here, where stands God s altar dread,
Stood his parents marriage-bed.

ii.

Here, first, an infant to her breast,
Him his loving mother prest ;
And kissed the babe, and blessed the day,
And prayed as mothers use to pray.

in.

" Vouchsafe him health, O God ! and give
The child thy servant still to live !"

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 255

But God had destined to do more

Through him, than through an armed power.

IV.

God gave him reverence of laws,

Yet stirring blood in Freedom s cause

A spirit to his rocks akin,

The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein !

v.

To Nature and to Holy Writ
Alone did God the boy commit :
Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft
His soul found wings, and soared aloft !

VI.

The straining oar and chamois chase
Had formed his limbs to strength and grace :
On wave and wind the boy would toss,
Was great, nor knew how great he was .

VII.

He knew not that his chosen hand,
Made strong by God, his native land
Would rescue from the shameful yoke
Of Slavery the which he broke !

256 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

<

I.

THE shepherds went their hasty way,

And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay :

And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A mother s song the Virgin-Mother sung.

n.

They told her how a glorious light,

Streaming from a heavenly throng,
Around them shone, suspending night !
While sweeter than a mother s song,
Blest Angels heralded the Saviour s birth,
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

in.

She listened to the tale divine,

And closer still the Babe she prest ;
And while she cried, the Babe is mine !
The milk rushed faster to her breast :
Joy rose within her, like a summer s morn ;
Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 257

That strife should vanish, battle cease,
O why should this thy soul elate ?

Sweet music s loudest note, the poet s story,

Did st thou ne er love to hear of fame and glory ?

v.

And is not War a youthful king-,

A stately hero clad in mail ?
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring ;

Him Earth s majestic monarchs hail
Their friend, their playmate ! and his bold bright

eye
Compels the maiden s love-confessing sigh.

VI.

" Tell this in some more courtly scene,

To maids and youths in robes of state !
I am a woman poor and mean,

And therefore is my soul elate.
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father tears his child !

VII.

tt

A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
He kills the sire and starves the son j
The husband kills, and from her board
Steals all his widow s toil had won ;
Plunders God s world of beauty; rends away
All safety from the night, all comfort from the

day.
vor,. i. s

258 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

VIII.

" Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease :
I m poor and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
Joy rises in me, like a summer s morn : [born."
Peace, Peace on Earth ! the Prince of Peace is

HUMAN LIFE,

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY.

IF dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom

Swallow up life s brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being ! If the breath

Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton s can know death ;

O Man ! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!

Surplus of nature s dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh^finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,

She formed with restless hands unconsciously J
Blank accident ! nothing s anomaly !

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter- weights !--Thy laughter and thy tears

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,
And to repay the other ! Why rejoices

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 259

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow g-ood ?

Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner s hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting- voices,

Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,
That such a thing as thou feel st warm or cold ?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self ?
Be sad ! be glad ! be neither ! seek, or shun !
Thou hast no reason why ! Thou can st have none ;
Thy being s being is contradiction.

MOLES.

THEY shrink in, as Moles
(Nature s mute monks, live mandrakes of the

ground)

Creep back from Light then listen for its sound ;-
See but to dread, and dread they know not why-
The natural alien of their negative eye.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.

NEVER, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,

Never alone :
Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler,

260 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

lacchus ! but in came boy Cupid the smiler ;
Lo ! Phoebus the glorious descends from his throne !
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all !
With divinities fills my
Terrestrial hall !

How shall I yield you
Due entertainment,

Celestial quire ?
Me rather, bright guests ! with your wings of up-

buoyance
Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joy-

ance,

That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre !
Hah ! we mount ! on their pinions they waft up
my soul !

O give me the nectar !
O fill me the bowl !
Give him the nectar !
Pour out for the poet,
Hebe ! pour free !

Quicken his eyes with celestial dew.
That Styx the detested no more he may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be !
Thanks, Hebe ! I quaff it ! .To Paean, I ciy !
The wine of the Immortals
Forbids me to die!

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 261

ELEGY,

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE s BLANK-
VERSE INSCRIPTIONS.

NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread,

Fast by the rivulet s sleep-persuading sound,

Where sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bed
O humbly press that consecrated ground !

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain !

And there his spirit most delights to rove :
Young Edmund ! famed for each harmonious strain,

And the sore wounds of ill- requited love.

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide,
And loads the west- wind with its soft perfume,

His manhood blossomed : till the faithless pride
Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue !

Where er with wildered step she wandered pale,
Still Edmund s image rose to blast her view,

Still Edmund s voice accused her in each gale.

With keen regret, and conscious guilt s alarms,
Amid the pomp of affluence she pined ;

Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund s arms
Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind.

Go, Traveller ! tell the tale with sorrow fraught :
Some tearful maid perchance, or blooming youth,
May hold it in remembrance ; and be taught
That riches cannot pay for Love or Truth.

262 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

SEPARATION.

A SWORDED man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,

Thro jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear !

The dazzling charm of outward form,
The power of gold, the pride of birth,

Have taken Woman s heart by storm
Usurp d the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price

Than outward Form, tho fair to see,

Wealth s glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry ?

! Asra, Asra ! couldst thou see
Into the bottom of my heart,

There s such a mine of Love for thee,
As almost might supply desert !

(This separation is, alas !

Too great a punishment to bear ;
O ! take my life, or let me pass

That life, that happy life, with her !)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter d, now I shrink to see

Oh ! I have heart enough to die
Not half enough to part from Thee !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 263

ON TAKING LEAVE OF , 1817.

To know, to esteem, to love and then to part,
Makes up life s tale to many a feeling heart !
O for some dear abiding-place of Love,
O er which my spirit, like the mother dove,
Might brood with warming wings! fair as kind,
Were but one sisterhood with you combined,
(Your very image they in shape and mind)
Far rather would I sit in solitude,
The forms of memory all my mental food,
And dream of you, sweet sisters, (ah, not mine !)
And only dream of you (ah dream and pine !)
Than have the presence, and partake the pride,
And shine in the eye of all the world beside !

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL.

AN ALLEGORY.
I.

HE too has flitted from his secret nest,
Hope s last and dearest Child without a name !-
Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame,
That makes false promise of a place of rest
To the tir d Pilgrim s still believing mind ;
Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court,
Who having won all guerdons in his sport,
Glides out of view, and whither none can find !

26-f SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

II.

Yes ! He hath flitted from me with what aim,
Or why, I know not ! Twas a home of bliss,
And He was innocent, as the pretty shame
Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss,
From its twy-cluster d hiding 1 place of snow !
Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow
As the dear hopes, that swell the mother s breast
Her eyes down gazing 1 o er her clasped charge ;
Yet gay as that twice happy father s kiss,
That well might glance aside, yet never miss,
Where the sweet markemboss d so sweet a targe
Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest !

in.

Like a loose blossom on a gusty nig ht
He flitted from me and has left behind
(As if to them his faith he ne er did plight)
Of either sex and answerable mind
Two playmates, twin-births of his foster-dame:
The one a steady lad (Esteem he hight)
And Kindness is the gentler sister s name.
Dim likeness now, tho fair she be and good
Of that bright Boy who hath us all forsook ;
But in his full-eyed aspect when she stood,
And while her face reflected every look,
And in reflection kindled she became
So like Him, that almost she seem d the same !

IV.

Ah ! He is gone, and yet will not depart I
Is with me still, yet I from Him exil d !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 265

For still there lives within my secret heart
The magic image of the magic Child,
Which there He made up-grow by his strong art,
As in that crystal 1 orb wise Merlin s feat,
The w r ondrous " World of Glass," wherein inisl d
All long d for things their beings did repeat ;
And there He left it, like a Sylph beguiled,
To live and yearn and languish incomplete !

v.

Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal ?

Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise ?

Yes ! one more sharp there is that deeper lies,

Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal.

Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise,

But sad compassion and atoning zeal !

One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray d !

And this it is my woful hap to feel,

When at her Brother s hest, the twin-born Maid

With face averted and unsteady eyes,

Her truant playmate s faded robe puts on ;

And inly shrinking from her own disguise

Enacts the faery Boy that s lost and gone.

O worse than all ! O pang all pangs above

Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love !

1 Faerie Queeae, B. in. c. 2. s. 19.

266 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

KUBLA KHAN: OR, A VISION
IN A DREAM.

A FRAGMENT.

IN the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill
health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock
and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and De
vonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an
anodyne had been prescribed, from the effect of which he
fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the
following sentence, or words of the same substance, in " Pur-
chas s Pilgrimage :" " Here the Khan Kubla commanded a
palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto : and thus
ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall."
The author continued for about three hours in a profound
sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he
has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have com
posed less than from two to three hundred lines ; if that
indeed can be called composition in which all the images
rose up before him as things, with a parallel production
of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or
consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to him
self to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking
his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down
the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was
unfortunately called out by a person on business from Por
lock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return
to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification,
that though he still retained some vague and dim recollec
tion of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the
exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 267

all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface
of" a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas !
without the after restoration of the latter :

Then all the charm

Is broken all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth ! who scarcely dar st lift up thine eyes
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return ! And lo ! he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool beomes a mirror.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the
Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what
had been originally, as it were, given to him. Avpiov
lidiov aw : but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment
of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity
the dream of pain and disease. 1816.

KUBLA KHAN.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;

268 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding 1 sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing- for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seeth
ing,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher s flail :
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice I

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 269

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Sinino of Mount Abora.

O O

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song-,

To such a deep delight twould win me
That with music loud and long-,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
Arid all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

,270 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

THE PAINS OF SLEEP.

ERE on my bed my limbs I lay,

It hath not been my use to pray

With moving- lips or bended knees ;

But silently, by slow degrees,

My spirit I to Love compose,

In humble trust mine eye-lids close,

With reverential resignation,

No wish conceived, no thought exprest,

Only a sense of supplication ;

A sense o er all my soul imprest

That I am weak, yet not unblest,

Since in me, round me, eveiy where

Eternal strength and wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong !
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still !
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 271

Fantastic passions ! maddening 1 brawl !
And shame and terror over all !
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know,
Whether I suffered, or I did :
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling 1 fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights passed : the night s dismay

Saddened and stunned the coining day.

Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me

Distemper s worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream

Had waked me from the fiendish dream,

O ercome with sufferings strange and wild,

I wept as I had been a child ;

And having thus by tears subdued

My anguish to a milder mood,

Such punishments, I said, were due

To natures deepliest stained with sin,

For aye entempesting anew

The unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,

To know and loathe, yet wish and do !

Such griefs with such men well agree,

But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?

To be beloved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed.

272 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

LIMBO.

Tis a strange place, this Limbo ! not a Place,
Yet name it so ; where Time and weary Space
Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of

fleeing,

Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;
Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
Barren and soundless as the measuring sands,
Not mark d by flit of Shades, unmeaning they
As moonlight on the dial of the day !
But that is lovely looks like human Time,
An old man with a steady look sublime,
That stops his earthly task to watch the skies ;
But he is blind a statue hath such eyes ;
Yet having moonward turn d his face by chance.
Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,
With scant white hairs, with fore top bald and high,
He gazes still, his eyeless face all eye ;
As twere an organ full of silent sight,
His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light !
Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb
He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him !
No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,
Wall d round, and made a spirit-jail secure,
By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 273

A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,

Yet that is but a Purgatory curse ;

Hell knows a fear far worse,

A fear a future state ; tis positive Negation 1

NE PLUS ULTRA.

SOLE Positive of Night !
Antipathist of Light !

Fate s only essence ! primal scorpion rod
The one permitted opposite of God !
Condensed blackness and abysmal storm
Compacted to one sceptre
Arms the Grasp enorm

The Intercepter

The Substance that still casts the shadow Death !
The Dragon foul and fell

The unrevealable,
And hidden one, whost^breath
Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell !

Ah ! sole despair
Of both th* eternities in Heaven !
Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,

The all-compassionate !
Save to the Lampads Seven
Reveal d to none of all th Angelic State,
Save to the Lampads Seven,
That watch the throne of Heaven !

VOL. I. T

APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

TO " FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER."

AT the house of a gentleman, who, by the principles and
corresponding virtues of a sincere Christian, consecrates a
cultivated genius and the favourable accidents of birth,
opulence, and splendid connexions, it was my good fortune
to meet, in a dinner-party, with more men of celebrity in
science or polite literature, than are commonly found col
lected round the same table. In the course of conversa
tion, one of the party reminded an illustrious poet, then
present, of some verses which he had recited that morning,^
and which had appeared in a newspaper under the name of
a \Var-Kclogue, in which Fire, Famine, and Slaughter
were introduced as the speakers. The gentleman so ad
dressed replied, that he was rather surprised that none of
us should have noticed or heard of the poem, as it had
been, at the time, a good deal talked of in Scotland. It
may be easily supposed, that my feelings were at this mo
ment not of the most comfortable kind. Of all present, one
only knew, or suspected me to be the author ; a man who
would have established himself in the first rank of Eng
land s living poets, if the Genius of our country had not
decreed that he should rather be the first in the first rank of
its philosophers and scientific benefactors. It appeared the
general wish to hear the lines. As my friend chose to re
main silent, I chose to follow his example, and Mr. *
recited the poem. This he could do with the better grace,
being known to have ever been not only a firm and active
Anti-Jacobin and Anti-Gallican, but likewise a zealous ad
mirer of Mr. Pitt, both as a good man and a great states
man. As a poet exclusively, he had been amused with the

* See p.tt;e 141.

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 275

Eclogue ; as a poet he recited it ; and in a spirit, which
made it evident, that he would have read and repeated it
with the same pleasure, had his own name been attached to
the imaginary object or agent.

After the recitation, our amiable host observed, that in
his opinion Mr. ***** had over-rated the merits of the
poetry ; but had they been tenfold greater, they could not
have compensated for that malignity of heart, which could
alone have prompted sentiments so atrocious. I perceived
that my illustrious friend became greatly distressed on my
account ; but fortunately I was able to preserve fortitude
and presence of mind enough to take up the subject without
exciting even a suspicion how nearly and painfully it
interested me.

What follows, is the substance of what I then replied,
but dilated and in language less colloquial. It was not my
intention, I said, to justify the publication, whatever its
author s feelings might have been at the time of composing
it. That they are calculated to call forth so severe a reprot
bation from a good man, is not the worst feature of such
poems. Their moral deformity is aggravated in proportion
to the pleasure which they are capable of affording to vin
dictive, turbulent, and unprincipled readers. Could it be
upposed, though for a moment, that the author seriously
wished what he had thus wildly imagined, even the attempt
to palliate an inhumanity so monstrous would be an insult
to the hearers. But it seemed to me worthy of considera
tion, whether the mood of mind, and the general state of
sensations, in which a poet produces such vivid and fan
tastic images, is likely to co-exist, or is even compatible
with, that gloomy and deliberate ferocity which a se
rious wish to realize them would pre-suppose. It had
>een often observed, and all my experience tended to con
firm the observation, that prospects of pain and evil to
thers, and in general, all deep feelings of revenue are
sommonly expressed in a few words, ironically tame, and
IL Che mind under so direful and fiend-like an in-

276 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

fluence seems to take a morbid pleasure in contrasting the
intensity of its wishes and feelings, with the slightness or
levity of the expressions by which they are hinted ; and
indeed feelhigs so intense and solitary, if they were not
precluded (as in almost all cases they would be) by a con
stitutional activity of fancy and association, and by the spe
cific joyousness combined with it, would assuredly them
selves preclude such activity. Passion, in its own quality,
is the antagonist of action ; though in an ordinary and
natural degree the former alternates with the latter, and
thereby revives and strengthens it. But the more intense
and insane the passion is, the fewer and the more fixed are
the correspondent forms and notions. A rooted hatred, an
inveterate thirst of revenge, is a sort of madness, and still
eddies round its favorite object, and exercises as it were a
perpetual tautology of mind in thoughts and words, which
admit of no adequate substitutes. Like a fish in a globe
of glass, it moves restlessly round and round the scanty
circumference, which it cannot leave without losing its
vital element.

There is a second character of such imaginary represen
tations as spring from a real and earnest desire of evil to
another, which we often see in real life, and might even
anticipate from the nature of the mind. The images, I
mean, that a vindictive man places before his imagination,
will most often be taken from the realities of life : they will
be images of pain and suffering which he has himself seen
inflicted on other men, and which he can fancy himself as
inflicting on the object of his hatred. I will suppose that
we had heard at different times two common sailors, each
speaking of some one who had wronged or offended him :
that the first with apparent violence had devoted every
part of his adversary s body and soul to all the horrid
phantoms and fantastic places that ever Quevedo dreamt
of, and this in a rapid flow of those outrageous and wildly
combined execrations, which too often with our lower classes
serve for escape-valves to carry off the excess of their pas-

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 277

sions, as so much superfluous steam that would endanger
the vessel if it were retained. The other on the contrary,
with that sort of calmness of tone which is to the ear what
the paleness of anger is to the eye, shall simply say, " If I
chance to be made boatswain, as I hope I soon shall, and
can but once get that fellow under my hand (and I shall
be upon the watch for him,) I ll tickle his pretty skin !

I wont hurt him ! oh no ! I ll only cut the to the

liver !" I dare appeal to all present, which of the two
they would regard as the least deceptive symptom of de
liberate malignity 1 nay, whether it would surprise them to
see the first fellow, an hour or two afterwards, cordially
shaking hands with the very man, the fractional parts of
whose body and soul he had been so charitably disposing
of; or even perhaps risking his life for him. What lan
guage Shakespeare considered characteristic of malignant
disposition, we see in the speech of the good-natured Gra-
tiano, who spoke " an infinite deal of nothing more than any
man in all Venice ;"

" Too wild, too rude and bold of voice!"

the skipping spirit, whose thoughts and words reciprocally
ran away with each other ;

" O be thou damn d, inexorable dog !

And for thy life let justice be accused!"

and the wild fancies that follow, contrasted with Shylock s
tranquil I stand here for Law."

Or, to take a case more analogous to the present subject,
should we hold it either fair or charitable to believe it to
have been Dante s serious wish, that all the persons men
tioned by him, (many recently departed, and some even
alive at the time,) should actually suffer the fantastic and
horrible punishments, to which he has sentenced them in
his Hell and Purgatory? Or what shall we say of the
passages in which Bishop Jeremy Taylor anticipates the
state of those who, vicious themselves, have been the cause
of vice and misery to their fellow-creatures. Could we

278 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

endure for a moment to think that a spirit, like Bishop
Taylor s, burning \vith Christian love ; that a man consti
tutionally overflowing with pleasurable kindliness ; who
scarcely even in a casual illustration introduces the image
of woman, child, or bird, but he embalms the thought with
so rich a tenderness, as makes the very words seem beauties
and fragments of poetry from Euripides or Simonides ;
can we endure to think, that a man so natured and so dis
ciplined, did at the time of composing this horrible picture,
attach a sober feeling of reality to the phrases 1 or that he
would have described in the same tone of justification, in
the same luxuriant flow of phrases, the tortures about to be
inflicted on a living individual by a verdict of the Star-
Chamber? or the still more atrocious sentences executed
on the Scotch anti-prelatists and schismatics, at the com
mand, and in some instances under the very eye of the Duke
of Lauderdale, and of that wretched bigot who afterwards
dishonoured and forfeited the throne of Great Britain ? Or
do we not rather feel and understand, that these violent
words were mere bubbles, flashes and electrical apparitions,
from the magic cauldron of a fervid and ebullient fancy,
constantly fuelled by an unexampled opulence of language.
Were I now to have read by myself for the first time the
poem in question, my conclusion, I fully believe, would be,
that the writer must have been some man of warm feelings
and active fancy ; that he had painted to himself the cir
cumstances that accompany war in so many vivid and yet
fantastic forms, as proved that neither the images nor the
feelings were tl a result of observation, or in any way
derived from realities. I should judge, that they were the
product of his own seething imagination, and therefore
impregnated with that pleasurable exultation which is ex
perienced in all energetic exertion of intellectual power ;
that in the same mood he had generalized the causes of the
war, and then personified the abstract and christened it by
the name which he had been accustomed to hear most often
associated with its management and measures. I should

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 279

guess that the minister was in the author s mind at the mo
ment of composition, as completely cnraSriG, avai^oaa^KOQ,
as Anacreon s grasshopper, and that he had as little notion
of a real person of flesh and blood,

"Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,"

as Milton had in the grim and terrible phantoms Chalf per
son, half allegory) which he has placed at the gates of Hell.
I concluded by observing, that the poem was not calculated
to excite passion in any mind, or to make any impression
except on poetic readers ; and that from the culpable levity,
betrayed at the close of the eclogue by the grotesque union
of epigrammatic wit with allegoric personification, in the
allusion to the most fearful of thoughts, I should conjecture
that the " rantin Bardie," instead of really believing, much
less wishing, the fate spoken of in the last line, in application
to any human individual, would shrink from passing the
verdict even on the Devil himself, and exclaim with poor
Burns,

But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben !
Oh ! wad ye tak a thought an men !
Ye aiblins might I dinna ken

Still hae a stake
I m wae to think upon yon den,

Ev n for your sake .

I need not say that these thoughts, which are here dilated,
were in such a company only rapidly suggested. Our kind
host smiled, and with a courteous compliment observed,
that the defence was too good for the cause. My voice fal
tered a little, for I was somewhat agitated ; though not so
much on my own account as for the uneasiness that so kind
and friendly a man would feel from the thought that he
had been the occasion of distressing me. At length I
brought out these words : " I must now confess, Sir ! that
I am author of that poem. It was written some years ago.
I do not attempt to justify my past self, young as I then
was ; but as little as I would now write a similar poem, so

280 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

far was I even then from imagining, that the lines would
be taken as more or less than a sport of fancy. At all
events, if 1 know my own heart, there was never a moment
in my existence in which I should have been more ready,
had Mr. Pitt s person been in hazard, to interpose my own
body, and defend his life at the risk of my own."

I have prefaced the poem with this anecdote, because to
have printed it without any remark might well have been
understood as implying an unconditional approbation on my
part, and this after many years consideration. But if it be
asked why I re-published it at all, I answer, that the poem
had been attributed at different times to different other
persons ; and what I had dared beget, I thought it neither
manly nor honourable not to dare father. From the same
motives I should have published perfect copies of two
poems, the one entitled The Devil s Thoughts, and the
other, The Two round Spaces on the Tomb-Stone,* but that
the first three stanzas of the former, which were worth all
the rest of the poem, and the best stanza of the remainder,
were written by a friend of deserved celebrity ; and because
there are passages in both, which might have given offence
to the religious feelings of certain readers. I myself in
deed see no reason why vulgar superstitions, and absurd
conceptions that deform the pure faith of a Christian,
should possess a greater immunity from ridicule than
stories of witches, or the fables of Greece and Rome. But
there are those who deem it profaneness and irreverence
to call an ape an ape, if it but wear a monk s cowl on its
head ; and I would rather reason with this weakness than
offend it.

The passage from Jeremy Taylor to which I referred, is
found in his second Sermon on Christ s Advent to Judg
ment ; which is likewise the second in his year s course of
sermons. Among many remarkable passages of the same

* See post 2nd volume.

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 231

character in those discourses, 1 have selected this as the
most so. " But when this Lion of the tribe of Judah shall
appear, then Justice shall strike, and ]\lercy shall not hold
her hands ; she shall strike sore strokes, and Pity shall not
break the blow. As there are treasures of good things, so
hath God a treasure of wrath and fury, and scourges and
scorpions ; and then shall be produced the shame of lust
and the malice of envy, and the groans of the oppressed
and the persecutions of the saints, and the cares of covet-
ousness and the troubles of ambition, and the indolence of
traitors and the violences of rebels, and the rage of anger
and the uneasiness of impatience, and the restlessness of
unlawful desires ; and by this time the monsters and
diseases will be numerous and intolerable, when God s
heavy hand shall press the sanies and the intolerableness,
the obliquity and the unreasonableness, the amazement and
the disorder, the smart and the sorrow, the guilt and the
punishment, out from all our sins, and pour them into one
chalice, and mingle them with an infinite wrath, and make
the wicked drink off all the vengeance, and force it down
their unwilling throats with the violence of devils and ac
cursed spirits."

That this Tartarean drench displays the imagination rather
than the discretion of the compounder ; that, in short, this
passage and others of the same kind are in a bad taste, few
will deny at the present day. It would, doubtless, have
more behoved the good bishop not to be wise beyond what
is written on a subject in which Eternity is opposed to
Time, and a death threatened, not the negative, but the
positive Opposite of Life ; a subject, therefore, which must
of necessity be indescribable to the human understanding
in our present state. But I can neither find nor believe,
that it ever occurred to any reader to ground on such pas
sages a charge against Bishop Taylor s humanity, or good
ness of heart. I was not a little surprised therefore to find,
in the Pursuits of Literature and other works, so horrible a
sentence passed on Milton s moral character, for a passage

282 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

in his prose writings, as nearly parallel to this of Taylor s
as two passages can well be conceived to be. All his
merits, as a poet, forsooth all the glory of having wri^n
the Paradise Lost, are light in the scale, nay, kick the
beam, compared with the atrocious malignity of heart, ex
pressed in the offensive paragraph. I remembered, in
general, that Milton had concluded one of his works on
Reformation, written in the fervour of his youthful imagi
nation, in a high poetic strain, that wanted metre only to
become a lyrical poem. I remembered that in the former
part he had formed to himself a perfect ideal of human
virtue, a character of heroic, disinterested zeal and devotion
for Truth, Religion, and public Liberty, in act and in suf
fering, in the day of triumph and in the hour of martyr
dom. Such spirits, as more excellent than others, he
describes as having a more excellent reward, and as distin
guished by a transcendant glory : and this reward and this
glory he displays and particularizes with an energy and
brilliance that announced the Paradise Lost as plainly, as
ever the bright purple clouds in the east announced the
coming of the Sun. Milton then passes to the gloomy
contrast, to such men as from motives of selfish ambition
and the lust of personal aggrandizement should, against
their own light, persecute truth and the true religion, and
wilfully abuse the powers and gifts entrusted to them, to
bring vice, blindness, misery and slavery, on their native
country, on the very country that had trusted, enriched and
honored them. Such beings, after that speedy and appro
priate removal from their sphere of mischief which all good
and humane men must of course desire, will, he takes for
granted by parity of reason, meet with a punishment, an
ignominy, and a retaliation, as much severer than other
wicked men, as their guilt and its consequences were more
enormous. His description of this imaginary punishment
presents more distinct pictures to the fancy than the ex
tract from Jeremy Taylor ; but the thoughts in the latter
are incomparably more exaggerated and horrific. All this

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 283

I knew ; but I neither remembered, nor by reference and
careful re-perusal could discover, any other meaning, vither
in Milton or Taylor, but that good men will be rewarded,
and the impenitent wicked punished, in proportion to their
dispositions and intentional acts in this life ; and that if
the punishment of the least wicked be i earful beyond con
ception, all words and descriptions must be so far true,
that they must fall short of the punishment that awaits the
transcendantly wicked. Had Milton stated either his ideal
of virtue, or of depravity, as an individual or individuals
actually existing ? Certainly not. Is this representation
worded historically, or only hypothetically ? Assuredly the
latter. Does he express it as his own wish, that after
death they should suffer these tortures ? or as a general
consequence, deduced from reason and revelation, that
such will be their fate 1 Again, the latter only. His wish
is expressly confined to a speedy stop being put by Provi
dence to their power of inflicting misery on others. But
did he name or refer to any persons living or dead ! No.
But the calumniators of Milton dare say (for what will
calumny not dare say ?) that he had Laud and Strafford in
his mind, while writing of remorseless persecution, and the
enslavement of a free country, from motives of selfish am
bition. Now, what if a stern anti-prelatist should dare say,
that in speaking of the insolencies of traitors and the
violences of rebels, Bishop Taylor must have individualised
in his mind, Hampden, Hollis, Pym, Fairfax, Ireton, and Mil
ton ? And what if he should take the liberty of concluding,
that, in the after description, the Bishop was feeding and
feasting his party-hatred, and with those individuals before
the eyes of his imagination enjoying, trait by trait, horror
after horror, the picture of their intolerable agonies 1 Yet
this bigot would have an equal right thus to criminate the
one good and great man, as these men have to criminate
the other. Milton has said, and 1 doubt not but that Tay
lor with equal truth could have said it, " that in his whole
life he never spake against a man even that his skin should

284 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

be grazed." He asserted this when one of his opponents
(either Bishop Hall or his nephew) had called upon the
women and children in the streets to take up stones and
stone him {Milton). It is known that Milton repeatedly
used his interest to protect the royalists ; but even at a
time when all lies would have been meritorious against
him, no charge was made, no story pretended, that he had
ever directly or indirectly engaged or assisted in their per
secution. Oh! methinks there are other and far better
feelings, which should be acquired by the perusal of our
great elder writers. When I have before me on the same
table, the works of Hammond and Baxter : when I reflect
with what joy and dearness their blessed spirits are now
loving each other : it seems a mournful thing that their
names should be perverted to an occasion of bitterness
among us, who are enjoying that happy mean which the
human too-much on both sides was perhaps necessary to
produce. " The tangle of delusions which stifled and dis
torted the growing tree of our well-being has been torn
away ; the parasite-weeds that fed on its very roots have
been plucked up with a salutary violence. To us there
remain only quiet duties, the constant care, the gradual
improvement, the cautious unhazardous labours of the indus
trious though contented gardener to prune, to strengthen,
to engraft, and one by one to remove from its leaves and
fresh shoots the slug and the caterpillar. But far be it from
us to undervalue with light and senseless detraction the
conscientious hardihood of our predecessors, or even to
condemn in them that vehemence, to which the blessings it
won for us lea\ e us now neither temptation nor pretext.
We ante-date the feelings, in order to criminate the authors,
of our present liberty, light and toleration."*

If ever two great men might seem, during their whole
lives, to have moved in direct opposition, though neither
cf them has at any time introduced the name of the other,

* The Friend, p. 54.

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 285

Milton and Jeremy Taylor were thev r . The former com
menced his career by attacking the Church-Liturgy and all
set forms of prayer. The latter, but far more successfully,
by defending both. Milton s next work was then against
the Prelacy and the then existing Church-Government
Taylor s in vindication and support of them. Milton be
came more and more a stern republican, or rather an advo
cate for that religious and moral aristocracy which, in his
day, was called republicanism, and which, even more than
royalism itself, is the direct antipode of modern jacobinism.
Taylor, as more and more sceptical concerning the fitness of
men in general for power, became more and more attached
to the prerogatives of monarchy. From Calvinism with a
still decreasing respect for Fathers, Councils, and for
Church-antiquity in general, Milton seems to have ended
in an indifference, if not a dislike, to all forms of ecclesias
tic government, and to have retreated wholly into the
inward and spiritual church-communion of his own spirit
with the Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into
the world. Taylor, with a growing reverence for authority,
an increasing sense of the insufficiency of the Scriptures
without the aids of tradition and the consent of authorized
interpreters, advanced as far in his approaches, (not indeed
to Popery, but) to Roman-Catholicism, as a conscientious
minister of the English Church could well venture. Milton
would be, and would utter the same, to all, on all occasions :
he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. Taylor would become all things to all men, if by any
means he might benefit any ; hence he availed himself, in
his popular writings, of opinions and representations which
stand often in striking contrast with the doubts and convic
tions expressed in his more philosophical works. He
appears, indeed, not too severely to have blamed that
management of truth (istam falsitatem dispensativam) au
thorised and exemplified by almost all the fathers : Integrum
omnino doctoribus et ccetus Christiani antistitibus esse, ut
dolos versent, falsa veris intermisceant et imprimis religi-

286 APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

onis hostes fallant, dummodo veritatis commodis et utilitati
inserviant.

The same antithesis might be carried on with the ele
ments of their several intellectual powers. Milton, austere,
condensed, imaginative, supporting his truth by direct
enunciation of lofty moral sentiment and by distinct visual
representations, and in the same spirit overwhelming what
he deemed falsehood by moral denunciation and a succes
sion of pictures appalling or repulsive. In his prose, so
many metaphors, so many allegorical miniatures. Taylor,
eminently discursive, accumulative, and (to use one of his
own words) agglomerative ; still more rich in images than
Milton himself, but images of fancy, and presented to the
common and passive eye, rather than to the eye of the ima
gination. Whether supporting or assailing, he makes his
way either by argument or by appeals to the affections, un
surpassed even by the schoolmen in subtlety, agility, and
logic wit, and unrivalled by the most rhetorical of the
fathers in the copiousness and vividness of his expressions
and illustrations. Here words that convey feelings, and
words that flash images, and words of abstract notion, flow
together, and whirl and rush onward like a stream, at once
rapid and full of eddies ; and yet still interfused here and
there, we see a tongue or islet of smooth water, with some
picture in it of earth or sky, landscape or living group of
quiet beauty.

Differing, then, so widely, and almost contrariantly,
wherein did these great men agree ? wherein did they re
semble each oth^r^ In genius, in learning, in unfeigned
piety, in blameless purity of life, and in benevolent aspi
rations and purposes for the moral and temporal improve
ment of the.ir fellow-creatures ! Both of them wrote a
Latin Accidence, to render education less painful to
children ; both of them composed hymns and psalms
proportioned to the capacity of common congregations ;
both, nearly at the same time, set the glorious ex
ample of publicly recommending and supporting general

APOLOGETIC PREFACE. 287

toleration, and the liberty both of the pulpit and the
press ! In the writings of neither shall we find a single
sentence, like those meek deliverances to God s mercy,
with which Laud accompanied his votes for the mutilations
and loathsome dungeoning of Leighton and others! no
where such a pious prayer as we find in Bishop Hall s
memoranda of his own life, concerning the subtle and
witty atheist that so grievously perplexed and gravelled
him at Sir Robert Drury s till he prayed to the Lord to
remove him, and behold ! his prayers were heard : for
shortly afterward this Philistine-combatant went to Lon
don, and there perished of the plague in great misery ! In
short, no where shall we find the least approach, in the
lives and writings of John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, to
that guarded gentleness, to that sighing reluctance, with
which the holy brethren of the Inquisition deliver over a
condemned heretic to the civil magistrate, recommendin-
him to mercy, and hoping that the magistrate will treat the
erring brother with all possible mildness ! the magistrate,
who too well knows what would be his own fate, if he
dared offend them by acting on their recommendation.

The opportunity of diverting the reader from myself to
characters more worthy of his attention, has led me far be
yond my first intention; but it is not unimportant to
expose the false zeal which has occasioned these attacks on
our elder patriots. It has been too much the fashion, first
to personify the Church of England, and then to speak of
different individuals, who in different ages have been rulers
in that church, as if in some strange way they constituted
its personal identity. Why should a clergyman of the
present day feel interested in the defence of Laud or Shel
don ? Surely it is sufficient for the warmest partizan of our
establishment, that he can assert with truth, when our
Church persecuted, it was on mistaken principles held in
common, by all Christendom ; and at all events, far less
culpable was this intolerance in the Bishops, who were
maintaining the existing laws, than the persecuting spirit

APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

afterwards shown by their successful opponents, who had
no such excuse, and who should have been taught mercy
by their own sufferings, and wisdom by the utter failure of
the experiment in their own case. We can say, that our
Church, apostolical in its faith, primitive in its ceremonies,
unequalled in its liturgical forms ; that our Church, which
has kindled and displayed more bright and burning lights of
genius and learning, than all other protestant churches
since the reformation, was (with the single exception of
the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, when all
Christians unhappily deemed a species of intolerance their
religious duty ; that Bishops of our church were among the
first that contended against this error ; and finally, that
since the reformation, when tolerance became a fashion, the
Church of England in a tolerating age, has shown herself
eminently tolerant, and far more so, both in spirit and in
fact, than many of her most bitter opponents, who profess
to deem toleration itself an insult on the rights of mankind !
As to my self, who not only know the Church-Establishment
to be tolerant, but who see in it the greatest, if not the sole
safe bulwark of toleration, I feel no necessity of defending
or palliating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order
to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, Esto perpettia !

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. WH ITHNCHAK, TOOKS COUHT.